Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN RHODESIA

Africans (Technical Training)

Mr. Pargiter: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what facilities exist in Northern Rhodesia for Africans to receive elementary training which will enable them to qualify for training as engineers or technical experts; what qualifications are required for such positions; and how many Africans receive training or qualify outside the territory.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod): As the Answer is long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Pargiter: While I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for promising to circulate an Answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT, may I say that I hope it will be rather more instructive than previous Answers have been and indicative of a very much greater effort in this direction than there has been in the past? After all, would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is not much good our complaining about the activities of the European Mineworkers' Union on behalf of the Africans whilst we are doing so little ourselves?

Mr. Macleod: It is a very detailed Answer giving all the information that I have, and if the hon. Member would like to raise other points on it perhaps when he has studied it he might like to come to see me.

Following is the Answer:
Northern Rhodesia Africans have the opportunity to obtain the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate and the Higher School Certificate, possession of which makes them eligible for bursaries to enable them to obtain further training at a university or college. The

Hodgson Technical College in Lusaka provides courses at craftsmen level in the engineering and building trades up to the Intermediate Certificate of the City and Guilds of London Institute. Under the Northern Rhodesia Apprenticeship Ordinance opportunities for apprenticeship are open equally to Europeans and Africans who have completed two years of secondary education.
The qualifications required for engineering and technical posts vary, but the same qualifications are required of both European and African applicants.
One Northern Rhodesia African has recently obtained an engineering degree at Leeds University and he is now receiving practical training with a firm of agricultural engineers. It is hoped to send two technical teachers for training in the U.K. during 1960–61 and thereafter up to four a year on technical (craft) courses under the Commonwealth Education Conference schemes.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLONIAL TERRITORIES

Students and Teachers

Mr. Millan: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what assistance is given by his Department to encourage students and teachers, respectively, to participate in exchange or other schemes in Colonial Territories; and what is the number of each, respectively, who have taken part in such schemes in the year 1958–59.

Mr. Iain Macleod: There are no exchange schemes. But about 17,000 students from Colonial Territories were studying in the United Kingdom during 1958–59 and in 1959 the Colonial Office alone recruited 257 teachers for service in Colonial Territories.

Mr. Millan: While thanking the Minister for that Answer, may I ask him whether, now that a number of universities are developing in Colonial Territories, he does not think it very important that the exchange of students should take place in other directions as well? Will the right hon. Gentleman do something positive about that, because my impression at the moment is that very few British students do, in fact, go to universities in the Colonies?

Mr. Macleod: I agree that in the future this is a development that we would like to see; we would like to see a two-way traffic develop. We help in one small way through Colonial Development and Welfare grant to one organisation, and if there are other ways of helping I shall be very glad to study them.

Passports

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why applications for passport renewals or endorsements from British subjects and British protected persons from British Colonial Territories, now temporarily resident in this country, are referred to the Governors of the Territories concerned, so causing unnecessary delays and annoyance to the persons concerned and whether he will take steps to discontinue this practice and simplify the procedure for such passport endorsements.

Mr. Marsh: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will discontinue the practice of referring to Governors of Colonial Territories in Africa applications for endorsements of passports held by Africans temporarily resident in this country.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Julian Amery): The power to issue passports under Royal prerogative to persons belonging to Colonial Territories is legally and constitutionally vested in the Governments of those Territories. It follows therefore that the renewal or endorsement of passports is also a matter for their discretion, with which by longstanding practice my predecessors have not interfered. I do not propose to depart from that practice.
In fact, many applications for renewals or endorsements of Colonial passports are, by arrangement with Colonial Governments, dealt with by the United Kingdom authorities without reference back; but it is plainly open to Colonial Governments to require that some or all applications, or classes of applications, should be referred to them for decision.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this bureaucratic system leads, very often, to quite unnecessary delays and that the second part of his reply indicates that there is political discrimination? As an illustration of that discrimination, will the hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend to look again at the case of Mr. Manda, a very responsible person from Nyasaland, who was prevented from going on a visit to Tunis by an unnecesary delay in his application being endorsed?

Mr. Amery: I believe that Mr. Manda's case was cleared by telegrams. I do not think that the delay was excessive. I do not think that this is a case of bureaucratic interference. The more self-government a Colonial Government have the more it must be left to their discretion what they do in the issue of passports.

Mr. Marsh: Is it not monstrous that a British citizen in this country should be denied freedom of travel, which is the right of any other person in this country? Is the Minister aware of the case of Mr. W. D. Colley, which I raised with him in December? Mr. Colley applied for a passport to go to Gambia in June, but did not receive a reply until 31st July, when he was told that he could have a temporary passport provided he gave the reasons and proof of where he was going and why—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] Also, does not the Minister think that the liberties of people under the control of this House are important enough to discuss in full?

Mr. Amery: In reply to the hon. Member's first point, I am sure that he will appreciate that, as self-government increases, certain powers must necessarily be more and more delegated to the Governments of the Territories concerned. I will gladly look further into the case of Mr. Colley, which he has sent to me, but Mr. Colley was offered certain facilities of which he did not choose to avail himself.

Mr. Stonehouse: How does the hon. Member's point about self-government apply to Nyasaland?

Mr. Amery: I think that that is a very different question. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is not such a difficult question, but a different question.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH SOMALILAND

Pan-Somali Conference, Mogadishu

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what official representatives from British Somaliland attended the Pan-Somali Conference at Mogadishu on 31st December last; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The persons from the Somaliland Protectorate who


attended the recent Conference in Mogadishu of the Pan-Somali National Movement did so as representatives of their political parties and not as official representatives of the Somaliland Protectorate Government.

Mr. Rankin: Since Somalia will become independent in July of this year and British Somaliland will get responsible government later on, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he realises that a feeling is growing up that these two Territories may eventually form a viable unit? Has he given any thought to that aspect of the conference and its results?

Mr. Macleod: We have certainly studied this possibility. Indeed, more than a year ago, on 9th February, my predecessor said that if after Somalia became independent there were a desire for such discussions we would facilitate them. That remains the position of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Rankin: May I take it, then, that the right hon. Gentleman will give some encouragement to this movement?

Mr. Macleod: The hon. Gentleman may take it, as I have said, that the position of Her Majesty's Government remains this February as it was last February.

Oral Answers to Questions — MALTA

Demonstrations

Mr. Awbery: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why demonstrations on Labour Day and National days have been prohibited in Malta, especially in view of the fact that no incidents have occurred on these festivals for several years.

Mr. Iain Macleod: There is no such prohibition. During 1959 demonstrations were held on both May Day and National Day.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware, that, according to my information from Malta, the conditions laid down for meetings and demonstrations are such as to make it almost impossible for a demonstration to be held? Is not it right that we should give these men every opportunity to express themselves in a democratic spirit in every way possible?

Mr. Macleod: Yes, but the hon. Member asked a specific question—are demonstrations being prohibited? The answer is that not only is there no such prohibition but last year these demonstrations did take place.

Mr. Mintoff (Letters)

Mr. Benn: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why letters addressed to Mr. Dom Mintoff, former Prime Minister of Malta, are being opened by the authorities; and what authorisation, by warrant or otherwise, is required before such letters can be opened in Malta.

Mr. Iain Macleod: No letters addressed to Mr. Mintoff have been opened by the authorities in Malta. For this to be done a Governor's Warrant under the Seditious Propaganda (Prohibition) Ordinance would be required, and no such Warrant has been issued.

Mr. Benn: While I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's assurance, which will be very well received elsewhere, may I ask him whether he is aware that Mr. Mintoff has received letters from Mr. Nehru and from the United Nations, both in new envelopes and both containing the note, "Found damaged and secured in the post", and that his suspicions, not unnaturally, have been aroused by these events?

Political Demonstrations (Film)

Mr. Benn: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why the police in Malta took a cine-camera film of the political demonstrations held on 8th December, 1959; who authorised this; what use is being made of the film; and whether he will make it available for Members of the House who wish to see it.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The police practice of taking films and photographs of gatherings which might possibly lead to disturbances originated over twenty years ago. They are taken only on the direct authority of the Commissioner of Police. The film taken on 8th December is being kept for record purposes and a copy can be made available for those Members of the House who may wish to see it.

Mr. Benn: I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman very much for his


reply, which will enable Members of this House to see the strength of feeling among the people of Malta about the policy which is being pursued.

Oral Answers to Questions — NYASALAND

State of Emergency (Financial Assistance)

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) what assurances have been given to the Financial Secretary of Nyasaland as to the financial assistance which will be forthcoming from this country towards the cost of the emergency in Nyasaland;
(2) what steps are being taken to expand the police forces in Nyasaland, and at what cost to the British Exchequer.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Assistance is being provided to the Government of Nyasaland towards financing a programme to strengthen the provincial administration and the Police Force, which has been worked out since the emergency.
Towards this programme, and certain costs arising out of the emergency, Her Majesty's Government have agreed to provide up to the following amounts in the period to the end of the financial year 1961–62:

(a) £1,268,000 capital expenditure on the police;
(b) £254,000 capital expenditure on the provincial administration;
(c) £288,000 for emergency items.

The Nyasaland Police Force establishment at 31st March, 1959, was 54 gazetted officers, 103 inspectors and 1,109 other ranks. It is proposed to expand the Force by an additional 40 gazetted officers, 62 inspectors and 1,037 other ranks.

Mrs. Castle: Is the Colonial Secretary aware that the Nyasaland Government have announced their intention of expanding the Police Force so as to provide one policeman to every 850 inhabitants, as compared with one policeman to every 1,500 inhabitants in this country, and this at a time when barely half the children in Nyasaland are receiving any education at all in schools? Would not it be far better (a) to abolish the emergency and to save British taxpayers' money, and (b) to see that British taxpayers'

money is spent on educating the people of Nyasaland instead of repressing them?

Mr. Macleod: No. I think anybody who studies the situation would agree that the police force in Nyasaland was far too small. It is not being expanded wholly as a result of the emergency. It is quite true, as the hon. Lady says, that after this expansion has taken place there will be one policeman to every 850 people. Before that the figure was one policeman to every 1,420 people. In Northern Rhodesia, for example, there is one policeman to 537 people, and I do not think that anybody would suggest that this new expansion is one which will make the police force in Nyasaland relatively too large.

Mr. Callaghan: As this additional burden, of more than £1 million, is to be borne by the British taxpayer wholly as a result of the opposition of the people of Nyasaland to federation, may I ask the Colonial Secretary whether he proposes to make any approach to the Federal Government to see whether it is willing to bear part of the cost of this emergency for so much of which its policy is responsible?

Mr. Macleod: I do not think that the hon. Member can have heard part of my answer to the supplementary question put by the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle). Quite apart from the emergency, the ratio of one to 1,420—as will be appreciated by the hon. Member who knows police matters very well indeed—indicates that the Police Force is far too small. Quite irrespective of the emergency, it would certainly be appropriate to increase the strength of the police force in Nyasaland.

Blantyre Incident (Inquiry)

Mrs. White: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what arrangements are being made to make available to the Southworth inquiry the evidence of journalists who were in Blantyre at the time of the Prime Minister's visit.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The editors of those newspapers and agencies whose correspondents were present on the occasion are being invited to make them available to give evidence before the Commission.

Mrs. White: Does that mean that they will be sent to Nyasaland at the expense of Her Majesty's Government, or will Mr. Justice Southworth come to this country to take evidence?

Mr. Macleod: No. The Governor has agreed that, if people wish to give evidence in person, their fares can be paid from Nyasaland public funds. Alternatively, it is possible for them, if they wish, to put in sworn statements.

Dr. Banda

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what progress he has made in his promised consideration of the proposal that Dr. Banda should be transferred from a Federal prison to a place under his own control.

Mr. Iain Macleod: When Dr. Banda was first detained, the Governor of Nyasaland considered that his removal to a place outside Nyasaland was essential to the restoration of public order in the territory. In the Governor's opinion it would not be in the interests of public order to remove him to a place of detention in Nyasaland.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: In that case, will the Colonial Secretary consider releasing him altogether?

Mr. Macleod: The hon. and learned Gentleman must know that that is a point which has not escaped me.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the position really this: that the Government want to release Dr. Banda, Dr. Banda refuses to be released unless his compatriots accompany him, and the Governor says that he proposes to resign if the Government release him? Is there any chance of escaping from this muddle?

Mr. Macleod: At the most, one of those three propositions is correct.

Oral Answers to Questions — FALKLAND ISLANDS

Dentists

Sir A. Hurd: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that the people of the Falkland Islands have been without the services of a qualified dentist since last April; and what action he is now taking to ensure the appointment of a suitable man.

Mr. J. Amery: It has proved very difficult to recruit dentists for the Falkland Islands but the Department is now in touch with two suitable dentists. An offer of appointment has been made to one of them and we are awaiting his reply.

Sir A. Hurd: Does my hon. Friend recognise that it is a serious matter that people in the Falkland Islands should be deprived of the services of a qualified dentist? If he cannot now make a permanent appointment, will he see that some qualified person is sent there as soon as possible to catch up with the arrears of work now outstanding?

Mr. Amery: We are doing the best we can. The idea is that someone should go for one-and-a-half years.

Oral Answers to Questions — ST. HELENA

Union Castle and Clan Line Ships (Visits)

Mr. C. Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how frequently vessels of the Union Castle and Clan lines call at St. Helena; and what subsidy per ship is paid to the companies concerned.

Mr. J. Amery: Once a month in each direction. With effect from 1st January, 1960, a subsidy of £2,500 is paid per call at both St. Helena and Ascension Islands by a passenger ship and £1,000 per call by a cargo ship.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Under-Secretary aware that one passenger vessel provides an income of £500 for the island where the population is extremely poor, and that therefore this is a major source of income? Would he consider having discussions with the shipping companies concerned to see whether more frequent calls can be made at St. Helena?

Mr. Amery: We have been looking at this matter. I can tell the hon. Member that it has not been easy even to make arrangements on the lines on which I have just spoken.

Constitution

Mr. C. Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what constitutional developments are proposed for St. Helena.

Mr. J. Amery: The Governor has submitted to my right hon. Friend his proposals for a revision of the Advisory Council to include elected members. My right hon. Friend has now been able to consider these and is communicating his views to the Governor.

Mr. Hughes: Can the Under-Secretary give an assurance that the elected members will be in the majority over the nominated members on the Council? Would he be good enough to say to which of the two Councils they are to be elected?

Mr. Amery: I think it would be wrong of me to disclose the exact details until the Governor has had an opportunity of commenting on my right hon. Friend's reply to him.

Mr. Reynolds: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether it is intended that, wherever possible, any of these proposals shall be extended to Ascension which, at the moment, as he is aware, is under benevolent company dictatorship?

Mr. Amery: I cannot anticipate the reply of the Governor.

Oral Answers to Questions — AFRICAN TERRITORIES

Civil Services (Conference)

Mr. Tapsell: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what current steps are being taken to review the need for building up local civil services in Africa.

Mr. Iain Macleod: A conference of senior officers from the African Territories will be held at the Colonial Office, under the chairmanship of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, beginning on 1st March, to exchange information on the measures adopted in various Territories to build up the locally recruited element in their public services and to consider what further steps can be recommended to the Governments of the Territories to expedite this process, to which Her Majesty's Government attach very great importance.

Mr. Tapsell: I welcome that reply. May I ask my right hon. Friend whether overseas unofficial Ministers will be invited to attend this conference?

Mr. Macleod: No, this is a conference of officials, and elected Ministers will not attend. But naturally I shall study the

recommendations of the conference, as will the Governor and the Ministers who have responsibility in this sphere.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the Minister aware that we shall be very happy to give him our support in the arrangement of this conference and we hope that it will be successful?

Oral Answers to Questions — FIJI

Disturbances, Suva (Inquiry)

Sir L. Plummer: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what reply has been given to the request of the Association of the Sons of the Pioneers of Fiji that a parliamentary delegation should be sent to act as observers at the inquiry that is to be conducted by the Chief Justice of Fiji into the recent disturbances in Suva, following the strike of oil workers.

Mr. J. Amery: Neither my right hon. Friend nor the Governor has received such a request.

Sir L. Plummer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this Association is the only one in Fiji in which the representation is part-European and the members want to give evidence before the Commission, but in the difficult racial position which now exists, they want it made clear to them that they will be given every assistance in giving evidence? May I ask whether that assistance will be provided?

Mr. Amery: We shall certainly give all reasonable assistance to all representative groups to express their views. The purpose of the Commission is to find out the facts and that is why the Chief Justice has been appointed to it.

Oral Answers to Questions — RHODESIA AND NYASALAND

Bills, Regulations and Enactments

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will arrange for the Bills, Regulations and enactments of Northern Rhodesia and of Nyasaland to be made available in the Library of the House of Commons immediately on publication.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am always ready to make particular documents of interest to hon. Members available in the Library


of the House, but it does not seem to me to be practicable to make the entire legislative proceedings of any Colonial Territory available in this way.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Cannot the Minister be a little more forthcoming? Does not he appreciate that during this critical period of development in Central Africa it is immensely important that this House should be kept up to date and fully acquainted with the legislative enactments carried out there? Does he appreciate that in the Public Security Bill provision is made for drastic measures, such as conscripting labour, and, in so doing, discriminating between black and white? Does not he further agree that it is extremely important that this House should be kept fully informed at the earliest possible moment about what is going on?

Mr. Macleod: I am very ready to help the hon. and learned Member, or any hon. Member, on this matter, but it cannot be done in the way suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman. I could not make the documents available immediately on publication because to do so I should have to have copies of them before they were published. But I do not think it right—because what I do for one Territory I should have to do for all the others—that we should try to keep under the microscope the individual legislative programmes of the thirty-eight Territories. That is against the whole theme of devolution of responsible Government from this House. On the other hand, I will try to help the hon. and learned Gentleman or any other hon. Members who would like special arrangements made for them in special circumstances, but I would not do this for all Territories, nor would I wish it to be a continuing process.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Does not the Minister appreciate that precisely for that reason and owing to the critical situation in Central Africa at the moment the Question was limited to Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia? Would he not make a special arrangement owing to the special circumstances that apply there?

Mr. Macleod: I fully understand that. If I were to do that for these Territories, I do not see how I could resist doing it for other Territories. I am very ready to consider whether the information that

comes is adequate. I know the great interest of hon. Members in these matters, but I should like to leave it in this way. If an hon. Member would like information about a particular document, I will try to make it available to him or put it in the Library of the House. I will look into the question whether the main legislative enactments of particular Territories can be made available in the light of what the hon. and learned Member has said.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA

Constitutional Conference

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the progress of the Constitutional Conference on Kenya.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The main groups concerned have stated their position in relation to proposals which I have circulated to the Conference. Some measure of agreement was revealed, and I welcome this. The Conference has now gone into committee to consider safeguards and other outstanding matters. I hope to be able to make a full statement to the House in a few days.

Mr. Wall: Does not my hon. Friend agree that for a real solution to these very difficult problems it is necessary for the two major parties to agree to work the new constitution at least for a period of years and for the African elected members to agree to take part in the Government?

Mr. Macleod: I have always sought a wide measure of agreement, and this is one of the reasons why the Conference has gone on so long. I think that it has been well worth the search. I am sure that we must try to seek agreement in Kenya. I am also sure that it would help if the African elected members were able to take part in the Government, but, of course, that is a matter for them.

Oral Answers to Questions — BAHAMAS

Health and Education Boards (Appointments)

Mrs. White: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why no women have been appointed to the Boards responsible for health and education in the Bahamas.

Mr. J. Amery: In making such appointments the Governor, in consultation with the Chairman of the Board concerned, selects those best fitted to serve irrespective of their sex.

Mrs. White: Will the hon. Gentleman consult with the Governor in this matter? Is he aware that women have no vote in the Bahamas and do not sit in the Legislature? There is no reason why they should be completely deprived of any say in such matters as the health and education of children.

Mr. Amery: As the hon. Lady is no doubt aware, women have been appointed to other boards—for example, the visiting committee to schools and the child protection committee.

Oral Answers to Questions — MAURITIUS

Hurricane Damage (Cost)

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the estimated cost of the damage in Mauritius due to the recent hurricane; and what arrangements are being made to finance the work of reconstruction.

Mr. Iain Macleod: My Answer last Thursday to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) set out the extent of the damage. Discussions with the Mauritius delegation have just begun and I am not yet able to make any statement about these.

Mr. Wall: Does my right hon. Friend think that there will be sufficient funds available from various sources to rehabilitate the island?

Mr. Macleod: I am not ready to make a statement about that. There are four Ministers from Mauritius in this country at present and financial discussions are going on at the moment with my Department.

Mr. Callaghan: May we take it that, in view of the very heavy loss sustained by Mauritius, this initial payment of £15,000 will not be a final payment but that the Government will be much more generous when they see the extent of the financial loss?

Mr. Macleod: The direct cost to the Government of Mauritius appears to be about £900,000. The proposals that have

been put forward to Her Majesty's Government cover about £6½ million and, therefore, clearly go beyond the question of replacement and must be considered on the basis of comparative need as part of a reconstruction programme. As I have said, these discussions are going on, but I am afraid that I cannot anticipate their conclusion.

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST INDIES

Sea Island Cotton

Mr. C. Royle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what recent discussions there have been on the question of sea island cotton; and if he will make a statement on the present condition of that industry.

Mr. J. Amery: I understand that there were discussions in the West Indies in December. I am asking the Governor-General for information about the outcome, and for an assessment of the present condition of the industry. I will circulate the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT when I have his reply.

Mr. Royle: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. Does not he agree that this is an industry which is being rather neglected as compared with, say, the sugar and citrus industries? Is he prepared to initiate those discussions?

Mr. Amery: I should like to get the full report from the Governor-General. I agree that the position of the industry has become serious with the drop in the price of long staple cotton.

Oral Answers to Questions — HONG KONG

Women and Young Persons (Hours of Work)

Mr. Thornton: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the operation of the labour regulations in Hong Kong limiting hours of work of women and young persons, which came into operation on 1st January, 1959.

Mr. J. Amery: During the first six months of 1959 transitional provisions operated to give industrial employers the opportunity to adjust working conditions. The regulations are now being


vigorously enforced. All factories maintain a register of women and young persons employed. A comprehensive system of inspection is aimed at ensuring that hours of work, meal breaks and rest days comply with the regulations and that there is proper reporting of overtime.

Mr. Thornton: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that the Colony's factory inspectorate is adequate to deal with the complex administrative problem of ensuring that each woman and young person has a rest day each week when the mills are operating on a seven-day week?

Mr. Amery: I hope we shall never be satisfied about these matters. Complacency is a very dangerous thing in a Government Department. The considerable number of prosecutions for evasion of the regulations should encourage the hon. Member to agree with me that the vigilance of the authorities is fairly good.

Mr. Osborne: Can my hon. Friend say what powers the United Kingdom Government have over the Colony to insist that decent labour standards are observed in these factories?

Mr. Amery: The Colony's new regulations go a long way to improve the working conditions for women and young persons in comparison with what they used to be.

Sir J. Barlow: How many days a year are the women and children permitted to work under the new regulations?

Mr. Amery: Under the new regulations, overtime may be worked up to one hour a day or six hours a week within a limit of 100 hours a year and may not take place in any undertaking in more than twenty-five weeks in any year.

Mr. S. Silverman: Did not the hon. Gentleman recognise, in answering his hon. Friend's supplementary question a moment or two ago, that there is a strong moral obligation on the Government of this country to exercise whatever powers they possess in this respect, since the result of this kind of labour condition in Hong Kong is materially to help the deterioration of the cotton industry in Lancashire, which the Government are doing nothing to assist?

Mr. Amery: As a Lancashire Member, I recognise the point, but the hon. Member would, I think, be the first to agree that there is also our duty to do as the trustees for Hong Kong.

Mr. Thornton: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when he proposes to take further steps to reduce the maximum hours of work of women and young persons in industrial establishments in Hong Kong, and so bring maximum hours into line with general Asian standards.

Mr. J. Amery: When the present regulations were introduced the Hong Kong Government made it clear that they were only a first step in its policy of raising minimum standards of employment. But the hon. Member will realise that the regulations have involved a major adjustment of working conditions in many undertakings. The problems of adjustment have already been overcome in all spinning mills and in more than half the larger weaving mills by changing over to 8-hour shifts. This process is spreading to other industries, but I am not yet in a position to forecast a date when maximum hours of work could be further reduced.

Mr. Thornton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the maximum hours of work of women and young persons in India and Pakistan, now independent Commonwealth countries, are nine hours per day, whereas in Hong Kong even now they are ten hours a day, six days a week, with an average of two hours' overtime throughout the year? This means that the maximum legal hours of work of women and young persons in Hong Kong are still sixty-two hours a week with only four days' holiday a year. Having regard to the surplus of labour which exists in Hong Kong and to the very high profits that are made there, is it not the sensible and humane thing to reduce hours of work to general Asian standards?

Mr. Amery: As I have said, the present regulations introduced by the Hong Kong Government are regarded only as a first step; but it takes a little time to adjust the economy of the Hong Kong community to these new regulations.

Refugees

Mr. A. Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the number of refugees that have entered Hong Kong since January, 1959.

Mr. J. Amery: No figures are available.

Mr. Roberts: Does the Minister realise that saturation point has already been reached in Hong Kong and that this is one of the main factors contributing to cheap labour in that part of the world? Does he not realise that we should know the exact position so that remedial measures may be taken?

Mr. Amery: We are well aware of the problem, but it is extremely difficult to control immigration into Hong Kong and almost impossible to get accurate figures of the position.

Mr. J. T. Price: If the authorities in Hong Kong are unaware of the extent of the influx of refugees—in other words, they do not know the population of Hong Kong—how can the Hong Kong Government set about the task of arranging proper social services, labour standards and protective legislation, for which my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton) was ridiculed in this House when he came back with his shocking report some months ago?

Mr. Amery: The hon. Member must realise that there is a good deal of fluctuation in all this and that our statistics are naturally invalidated by the flow of immigration.

Oral Answers to Questions — ESTATES (PROBATE AND LETTERS OF ADMINISTRATION)

Mr. Iremonger: asked the Attorney-General if he will introduce legislation to raise the value of estates, in respect of which probate and letters of administration may be granted on application at a district registry instead of the Principal Probate Registry, to take account of the fall in purchasing power of the pound sterling since that value was most recently laid down by Statute.

The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): My hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. Grants of

probate and letters of administration can be issued by district probate registries for estates of any value.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF WORKS

The Mall (Car Parking Facilities)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Minister of Works whether he will reopen the car parking facilities on the north side of the Mall to relieve the continuing congestion of traffic in the Central London area.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. Harmar Nicholls): No, Sir.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: When thinking of the setting up of a comprehensive scheme of parking meters for the central area, will my hon. Friend consider reopening this little part under the trees temporarily during the summer months?

Mr. Nicholls: I assure my hon. Friend that we are being very co-operative, recognising the importance of the traffic problem. To help until the parking meters are available in parts of Mayfair, we have agreed for the Horse Guards Parade still to be available for parking.

Mr. Lipton: Is the Minister aware that something like 60,000 cars come into Central London every day? If he thinks that that influx of cars is right and proper, when will he do something about accommodating them?

Mr. Nicholls: The particular part of London mentioned in the Question would not make all that difference. We co-operated in the Christmas arrangement and, as I have said, we are still leaving the Horse Guards Parade available for parking.

Mr. Jeger: Is the Minister aware that the Horse Guards Parade and the Mall provide a very good car parking arrangement except for the fact that the facility terminates at 10 p.m.? Is he aware that if he wants to get cars off the streets in the West End of London, the time should be extended to 11 p.m. so that the theatre-going public can put their cars off the main streets and into the car parks?

Mr. Nicholls: That is a question for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport.

Wrest Park, Bedfordshire

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Works when the work of restoring the gardens at Wrest Park, near Silsoe, Bedfordshire, commenced; when it will be completed; what is the total cost, including the wages bill, for the gardens up to the latest convenient date; what are the total receipts from admission charges; and how much did they cost to collect.

Mr. H. Nicholls: As the Answer is rather long, I will with permission circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Dodds: But does the Parliamentary Secretary deny that the facts will show a very sad state of affairs? Will he consider with his right hon. Friend seeking some advice from someone who knows something about this work, like the Duke of Bedford, or better still, in the interest of the taxpayers, appointing him Minister of Works?

Mr. Nicholls: I am rather glad that the hon. Member was able to ask that supplementary question, because I noticed in a newspaper that "Mr. Norman Brooks" was to ask this Question. Now I see that it was not Mr. Norman Brooks but the hon. Member.

Following is the Answer:
The house and gardens at Wrest Park are leased by my Department to the British Society for Research in Agricultural Engineering and occupied by the National Institute of Agricultural Engineering.
The Institute spends about £2,000 a year on the maintenance of the gardens. My Department is restoring the historic garden buildings and ornaments, which are of exceptional interest as features of a garden layout which is unique in this country. Work on these started in September, 1949, and the main buildings are due for completion in 1961. So far some £40,000 has been spent on the buildings.
Since 1954, the historic parts of the gardens, including the garden buildings and ornaments in my care, have been open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays during the summer months. Total receipts since 1954 amount to about £250.
Custody services for the gardens are provided by my Department and the total cost of these since 1954 amounts to £1,440. It is not possible to give the cost of collection separately within this total.

Iver Grove, Buckinghamshire

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Works when Iver Grove, Buckinghamshire, was bought by his Department with

a view to opening it to the public; what was the purchase price; how much has been spent on the house and gardens; and what it is now proposed to do with it.

Mr. H. Nicholls: I would refer the hon. Member to my right hon. Friend's reply on 26th January, 1960, to the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. A. Lewis). The property has now been sold to a private purchaser, subject to contract, and will be open to the public by appointment.

Mr. Dodds: But is it not a fact that it was bought in 1956 for the public for £3,000 and that at a local inquiry the Government were warned that it would be a white elephant but the man from Westminster or Whitehall knew best? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is what the Minister said. Does not this indicate that when it is all gone into and everything is taken into account, there will be a big debt for the taxpayer to bear once again?

Mr. Nicholls: The property will be open to the general public and any facility that this sort of property usually gives to the public will continue to be available. As to its value, the Historic Buildings Council has said that, after the proceeds of sale are credited, the net expenditure will have been justified. I am certain that the hon. Member will find that this property was worth while preserving in this way. It will be an asset to the nation and it will be open to the general public.

Works Contracts (Tenders)

Mr. Spriggs: asked the Minister of Works if he will undertake to adopt free and open competitive tendering for all his Department's contracts, and the widest possible use of the usual channels for the securing of maximum public advertisement.

Mr. H. Nicholls: It is my Department's policy to place contracts for construction work after competitive tendering, but my right hon. Friend does not consider that advertising for an unlimited number of tenders is a satisfactory system. The system of inviting tenders from a selected list of approved firms is the one recommended by several independent committees since 1944 and was commended only a few months ago in the Code of Procedure for Selective


Tendering published by the Joint Committee of Architects, Quantity Surveyors and Builders.

Mr. Spriggs: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that if he does not give firms an opportunity to show what they can do his Department will never be in a position to know whether these firms are fit to do the work?

Mr. Nicholls: I can assure the hon. Member that any firm can get on to the Ministry's list of approved firms. If he has a firm in mind which he thinks ought to be on the list I shall be delighted to look into the matter.

Mrs. Castle: May I say that I am very sorry that the Minister has influenza? Will the Parliamentary Secretary remind him that this problem has arisen in connection with the provision of facilities in the Palace of Westminster? Is he aware that the Stokes Committee commented adversely on the fact that certain urgently needed improvements to the Library were not carried out because of the high level of Ministry of Works estimates and that the Committee recommended that this work could be put out for competitive tendering? Could the hon. Gentleman ask the Minister why this has not been done?

Mr. Nicholls: The hon. Lady has added to the point that I was making. One has to be certain that firms which are invited to tender are capable of doing the work. As far as this Royal Palace is concerned, one would invite only people who had the facilities, the ability and the knowledge necessary to get the work done. As I have said in reply to the main Question, it is possible for any firm which has the facilities and which can show that it can do the work to be put on the Ministry's list to be invited to tender.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Spriggs.

Mr. Spriggs: With reference to—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I was calling the hon. Member to ask the next Question.

Mr. Spriggs: asked the Minister of Works how many firms or companies receive invitations to tender for Departmental contracts; and why his Department refuses tenders, or does not allow interested firms to tender, in view of the

specialised knowledge of some firms which wish to tender.

Mr. H. Nicholls: Four to eight contractors are normally invited to tender for works contracts according to the size of the job, selected from the Department's list of approved firms. These arrangements are satisfactory to the industry generally.

Mr. Spriggs: Is not the Minister's policy perhaps in danger of creating a monopoly or a price ring of some kind?

Mr. Nicholls: I think that if there were any difficulty about any firm getting on the approved list there would be that danger to both the public—as I heard interjected from the Front Bench—and the building industry. Tendering is best covered by firms being asked to tender for work which it is known they are capable of doing.

Windsor Castle (Central Heating)

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Minister of Works whether he will ensure, before allowing the Windsor Castle heating installations to be converted to oil, that every alternative heating method using coal or coke has been examined with the National Coal Board and the British Coke Industry Association.

Mr. H. Nicholls: The scheme for an adequate central heating installation at Windsor Castle was designed some years ago and an oil-fired installation was decided upon after careful consideration of all the circumstances. It is now some months since this contract was let and the work is too advanced to consider changing the system. In the case of new schemes it is the current practice of my Department to consult the National Coal Board before deciding on the heating method.

Mr. Wyatt: Will the Parliamentary Secretary say why his Ministry did not consult the Minister of Power before the arrangement was made? Is he aware that what is now being done is to compare a modern oil-burning installation with an old-fashioned coke installation? Does he not know that there are many modern coal- and coke-burning systems which are cheaper to use than oil-burning systems and that they also eliminate the use of labour? Is he further aware—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Progress will be better if hon. Members keep silent.

Mr. Wyatt: Is the Parliamentary Secretary further aware that, even though money may have been spent on this oil installation, it is still possible to convert it to coal- or coke-burning without any increase in expenditure? Does he not realise—[HON MEMBERS: "Speech."]—that the conversion of the Windsor Castle heating system to oil-burning will be taken as a very grave insult by miners who will suffer a very grievous blow to their morale?

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is manifest that the hon. Member's supplementary question is too long. Mr. Hector Hughes.

Mr. Wyatt: On a point of order. Even though my supplementary question was made too long by the interruptions of hon. Members opposite, it is not as long as many other supplementary questions that have been asked this afternoon. Furthermore, am I not entitled to a reply, because this is a very important matter?

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry, but I have an obligation to try to help the House to cut these supplementary questions shorter. I am sure that from time to time I make mistakes, because one goes on listening to a long question hoping that it is coming to an end. It is therefore difficult to be fair about it.

Mr. Gaitskell: Further to that point, surely it would be right and proper to allow the Parliamentary Secretary to reply. My hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Wyatt) asked a number of important questions.

Mr. Speaker: The position is that if the question is out of order there is no need for a reply, but I should like to give the Parliamentary Secretary an opportunity of answering before we go on to the next Question.

Mr. Nicholls: I assure the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Wyatt) that we do compare like with like and that the advisers at the Ministry of Works have detailed knowledge of the relative merits of all forms of heating. The structure of Windsor Castle, the availability of a storage place for coal and questions of amenity all show that an oil installation would be the most satisfactory.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Midlothian County Council Development Plan (By-pass Road)

Mr. Willis: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress has been made in the completion of the preliminary arrangements for commencing the Wallyford, or Musselburgh, by-pass.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Niall Macpherson): The line of road has been included in the Midlothian County Council Development Plan which has still to be approved.

Mr. Willis: Is the Joint Under-Secretary of State aware that there will be great disappointment that nothing much has been done about this? Will he not urge upon his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland the urgency of getting on with this road which joins the Edinburgh by-pass, particularly in view of the progress made with the Forth road bridge and what is happening in the Lothians?

Mr. Macpherson: I will convey to my right hon. Friend what the hon. Member has said, but the hon. Member will realise that there are certain procedures which must be followed.

Land (Reclamation Grants)

Mr. Willis: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many acres of land in Scotland were reclaimed for agricultural purposes with assistance of reclamation grants during the year 1958–59.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gilmour Leburn): During the financial year 1958–59 grants totalling approximately £34,000 were paid under the Farm Improvement Scheme, the Hill Farming and Livestock Rearing Acts, the Marginal Agricultural Production Scheme and the Crofters Agricultural Grants Scheme in respect of the reclamation of some 2,000 acres for agricultural purposes. It is not possible to say how much of this reclamation was actually carried out in 1958–59 and how much in earlier years.

Mr. Willis: I had difficulty in hearing that reply, but, if I heard it aright, may I ask if the hon. Gentleman is aware that it is scandalous that the amount being reclaimed is falling, and that there is a


vast area in Scotland about which something ought to be done? Will he press this matter upon his right hon. Friend?

Mr. Leburn: The figure of 2,000 acres is not substantially less than that in previous years, and I consider that there are ample incentives under existing schemes to bring land back into agricultural use.

New Housing Schemes (Land)

Mr. Stodart: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many acres in Scotland have been used for new housing schemes from 1950 to 1959, inclusive.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): No exact figure is available, but it is estimated that some 29,000 acres were used for new housing schemes in that period, not all of which is lost to agriculture.

Oral Answers to Questions — AFRICA (PRIME MINISTER'S VISIT)

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his discussions with the Prime Minister of the Federal Government of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): During my visit to Salisbury, I had a valuable exchange of views with the Federal Prime Minister and his Cabinet, covering topics of common concern. These discussions were private.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is not the Prime Minister aware that he deserves to be congratulated on the stand he took when he said to Sir Roy Welensky that there is no chance of Dominion independence for the Federation until the Africans in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland agree to it? May I ask him whether he also told Sir Roy Welensky that we intend to confirm and continue our protection of the Africans in Southern Rhodesia until those Africans ask for that protection to be removed? May I also ask him to confirm that we intend to trim our policies in Rhodesia and Nyasaland to the wind of change?

The Prime Minister: With regard to the question of my discussions with Sir Roy Welensky, I have nothing to add to what I have said. I did, however,

make a statement in public at Salisbury, and I stand by what I said then.

Mr. Gaitskell: With reference to that statement, the Prime Minister pointed out that the people of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia would have a choice between either entering an independent and free Federation or remaining under British tutelage. May I ask him if that is the only choice which will be available to them, or whether they will also have the right of secession and continuing as an independent country?

The Prime Minister: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman meant to misrepresent me in any way, but I would not accept his version of my Salisbury speech in the quite simple way in which he has posed it. I made it after considerable thought and care, and would not like to make glosses upon it in the interchange of question and answer.

Mr. Gaitskell: If the Prime Minister disagrees with my interpretation, is he prepared to tell me where I was wrong?

The Prime Minister: If necessary, I will send a copy of the speech to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Gaitskell: I have taken the precaution of obtaining a copy for myself beforehand, and I should like to repeat my question. Did not the Prime Minister say that in effect the people of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia would not be forced into a free and independent Federation, but that they would have the choice between going into that and remaining as they are now under British tutelage? I am asking him whether they have not a third choice, and that is the right to remain as an independent country on their own?

The Prime Minister: That is quite another question from the one I dealt with at Salisbury. The question I dealt with at Salisbury was to try to set out as clearly as I could what was meant by the Preamble to the Act and by other statements made on behalf of the Government. I think that, in doing so, I made it perfectly plain what the situation was with regard to the Federation receiving complete Commonwealth independence.

Mr. Grimond: Did the Prime Minister notice, while in Africa, that the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia said that


in certain circumstances he might have to secede from the Federation? Is it the view of the Prime Minister that that is a correct interpretation of possibilities under the present Constitution?

The Prime Minister: That is an entirely different question. I do not think it would be wise for me to comment on these statements that were made. We have a very difficult task here during tae next year and I would appeal to the House as a whole that we should try to face them in as little partisan spirit as possible.

Mr. Callaghan: Is it not the case that, although the Prime Minister is unwilling to comment on what he said, Sir Edgar Whitehead is commenting on what the Prime Minister said, as quoted in the official news-letter put out by the Federation? Is it not important that the Prime Minister should get away from this masterly evasiveness about the future of these Territories, and state clearly whether, if Southern Rhodesia in certain circumstances is able to leave the Federation, the people of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, if they so choose, should be free to do the same?

The Prime Minister: I am not prepared to answer these hypothetical questions. I think the hon. Gentleman is suffering from some sense of disappointment at the result of my visit.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. de Freitas.

Mr. Callaghan: May I ask—

Hon. Members: No.

The Prime Minister: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would have given the hon. Gentleman in opportunity, but I did not see him in the act of rising until after I had called the next Question.

Mr. Callaghan: On a point of Order. May I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that it is our view on this side of the House that the formulation of a correct policy for Africa is much more important than the scoring of party points, and that the Prime Minister ought to know this by now?

Mr. Speaker: That is not an observation that the hon. Member can address to me. Mr. de Freitas.

Mr. de Freitas: asked the Prime Minister what discussions he had in South Africa on the future of Basutoland.

The Prime Minister: Apart from discussions with the High Commissioner and his officers, I held some talks with the political leaders in Basutoland.
I naturally had certain private discussions with the Prime Minister of the Union about the Protectorates generally.

Mr. de Freitas: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Union Prime Minister has threatened that, unless the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards the natives of Basutoland conforms to the Union's policy towards its own native population, he will deny the right of the immigrants from Basutoland to earn a living in the Union of South Africa? In view of this serious economic threat, may I ask the Prime Minister what he intends to do about it?

The Prime Minister: I know of no such statement, and I think it is extremely unlikely that any such course will be taken.

Mr. de Freitas: Is the Prime Minister aware that reports of such a statement were published in many Sunday newspapers, including the Observer, this weekend?

Oral Answers to Questions — RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

Mr. C. Royle: asked the Prime Minister, in view of his official statement on the subject of race discrimination during his visit to South Africa, whether he will restate the policy of Her Majesty's Government with regard to future action within the United Nations Organisation on this matter.

The Prime Minister: The attitude of Her Majesty's Government on matters arising at the United Nations depends on the nature of the items to be inscribed on the agenda, the terms of the resolutions which may be introduced and the provisions of the Charter which govern United Nations proceedings.

Mr. Royle: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will recall a short passage in his speech to the South African Parliament, of which, for the sake of


greater accuracy, I have obtained a copy? He said:
As a fellow member of the Commonwealth, it is our earnest desire to give South Africa support and encouragement, but there are some aspects of your policy which make it impossible"—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am afraid that quotations from speeches are out of order in Questions. Perhaps the hon. Member can frame his question in some way as to avoid that difficulty.

Mr. Royle: I think I may be able to do so, Mr. Speaker. I will ask the Prime Minister if what he said to the South African Parliament can in any way relate with consistency to the United Kingdom vote in the United Nations Organisation in the past two years and also with the way in which this country voted or refrained from voting in the years before? Is it not a complete contradiction of what the Prime Minister said to the South African Parliament?

The Prime Minister: No, I do not think so. I said clearly that there were certain questions on which we could not give them our support. What our right and proper course is when a particular resolution is introduced into the Assembly depends upon our view as to the rules governing the Assembly.

Mr. Donnelly: In warmly welcoming the Prime Minister back from his trip to Damascus, may I ask him about the garden party which was given in his honour by the United Kingdom High Commissioner in South Africa? Could he tell me how many coloured people were invited to that garden party and how many accepted?

The Prime Minister: I am afraid that I could not.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Could the Prime Minister tell us if he has yet received a congratulatory telegram from Mr Khrushchev on his speech in South Africa?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, but I had an interchange of birthday greetings with Mr. Khrushchev, which I think were published in the newspapers.

Mr. Lipton: Is the Prime Minister aware—if I may abandon political warfare for a moment or two—that, taken by itself, the speech he made to the South African Parliament was a jolly good speech?

The Prime Minister: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Oram: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, you ruled just now that my hon. Friend was out of order in quoting from a speech. Earlier the Prime Minister had refused to answer a supplementary question from the Leader of the Opposition because he had not quoted from the speech. Does not that put us in rather a difficult position?

Mr. Speaker: I should like to look at what happened to the Leader of the Opposition, but I have no doubt that my Ruling in the other instance was right. I am afraid that it is an old-established matter.

AFRICA (PRIME MINISTER'S VISIT)

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I will make a statement on my journey to Africa.
Soon after I became Prime Minister I determined, if it were at all possible, to make visits during my period of office to all the independent members of the Commonwealth.
In the early weeks of 1958 I visited five of the independent Commonwealth countries in Asia and Australasia—India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Australia and New Zealand. I went, also, to Singapore, but, unfortunately, I was not able to include Malaya in that tour.
I had hoped to complete my Commonwealth travels in 1959, but, in the circumstances which arose, and after careful thought, I decided to postpone the rest of my Commonwealth tour and to undertake instead a visit to Moscow. I am happy to say that this decision was supported by the Governments of all the Commonwealth countries.
In the concluding months of last year arrangements were made by which I could fulfil my ambition of completing my Commonwealth journey by a tour of Africa. As a result, I have recently visited four countries of Africa which have attained, or are well advanced towards, independent membership of the Commonwealth—Ghana, Nigeria, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and the Union of South Africa. I am


most grateful to the Governments of all these countries, who invited me to visit them and made such admirable arrangements for my tour.
My purpose in these visits has never been to negotiate or to settle any particular problems which there might be between the United Kingdom and the other Government concerned. Matters of that kind are better left to the normal channels of communication and to the Ministers who have special responsibility for them. My idea was that the visits of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers to London—which we welcome so much when they take place, which is at intervals of some eighteen months or two years—excellent as they are from our point of view, ought not to remain what I have called a one-way traffic. I felt that the presence, even for a few weeks, of a British Prime Minister in office would be both a symbol of the links which bind the Commonwealth and a practical method of holding informal discussions on broad general issues such as are appropriate on a visit of this kind. I may add that it makes my work in London much easier, and I think, more fruitful, if I have some personal impression of the character of these countries, their problems and their ambitions. In addition, one is able to have personal discussions in their own homes with the Prime Ministers and other Ministers concerned.
I have now visited all the independent countries of the Commonwealth with the exception of Malaya. I have, therefore, nearly completed the task which I set myself on assuming office. I would certainly not over-estimate the value of these visits. Still less would I claim that in a few days or weeks one can gain any expert knowledge of the problems of each country. Nevertheless, I hope that these journeys will at least have demonstrated the faith of Her Majesty's Government and people in the United Kingdom in the value of the Commonwealth as one the greatest forces for peace and progress in the world today.
With regard to my few weeks in Africa, I see that there are a large number of Questions on the Order Paper and I have no doubt there will be others in the weeks to come. I will do my best to give the information sought, where it is proper to do so, and to answer the points raised in these Questions so far as

possible at the proper time. I shall not attempt today, Mr. Speaker, to anticipate them. I shall confine myself to some general comments.
The countries in Africa which I visited represented almost every different facet of the African problem. In Ghana, where I was most hospitably entertained by the Governor-General and the Prime Minister, I had the opportunity of seeing the great economic, social and political progress which is the culmination of many centuries of contact with the West. Europeans are playing a great rôle in the economic development and progress of this independent African country. I believe that they will continue to do so in the future. For I felt a real sense of friendship for the British people, and a full understanding of the debt which Ghana owes to them.
In Nigeria, I was fortunate enough to be able to address the Assembly on a historic date. This was the first meeting of the Parliament elected under the agreement reached at a series of conferences presided over by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd), to whom many tributes were paid. This historic meeting which I had the privilege to address represented the last stage in the country's progress to independence, which will be finally achieved in October this year. Nigeria is of course, an immense country. In area it is four times the size of the United Kingdom. In population it is the largest single country in Africa and the fourth largest in the Commonwealth. It has a great future before it. The recent discovery of oil and the development of agriculture should give it a sound economic basis. I hope and believe that the federal structure which has been devised will enable the three regions to work together in the development of a truly national spirit.
In the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland I was able to have talks with the Prime Minister of the Federation and his Cabinet, with the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia and his Ministers, with the Governor of Northern Rhodesia and his Council, and also with the Governor of Nyasaland and his advisers. I was also able to see representatives of a large number of political and other groups and to form at least some picture of the difficult


problems, as well as the impressive prospects, of this immense territory.
At the moment when my noble Friend Lord Monckton and his colleagues are just about to start work I do not think that the House would wish me to comment upon the constitutional problems, except to say this. We know that, in the course of the next year, important decisions must be taken. The final responsibility lies, of course, with the Governments. But they will, I am sure, be well served by the preparatory work which is to be undertaken by the Commission. We shall come to the final conference well prepared. Meanwhile, I must say that everything I saw confirmed my confidence in the future. Much progress has been made in recent years and great possibilities for future development lie ahead. The formal opening of the Kariba Dam by the Queen Mother this May will be an impressive symbol of what has been done and what may be achieved in the future.
In the Union of South Africa I had only a few days to make a tour covering a very large area, but I was able to see a little both of the mining and of the various industrial developments, and to have long and intimate discussions with the Prime Minister—who kindly entertained me in his own house at Cape Town. The Union of South Africa is about to celebrate the fiftieth year since its foundation. It should not be forgotten that it came into being as the result of a decision of the British Parliament in 1910 in an attempt to build a single nation after the long struggles between the Afrikaaners and the British.
While I was in South Africa I was able to pay visits to each of the three High Commission Territories—Bechuanaland, Swaziland and Basutoland. The visits, however short, were a demonstration of the interest shown by the people of the United Kingdom in the progress and welfare of these territories.
Here, then, was contrast; I began with Ghana, which became independent two years ago, and I ended with the Union, which became independent fifty years ago—both by decisions of the British Parliament. I began with a purely African country where there has never been and never can be a European resident population. I ended with a country where, as well as the large African

population, there are 3 million Europeans, many of them descended from ancestors who entered the country more than three hundred years ago. In between these two we have the Federation—containing, in Southern Rhodesia, a large European population and smaller European communities in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. They are citizens of these countries and cannot be citizens of any other country, for their homes are there.
All these varying situations, as well as the immense distances and size of these territories, convince me more than ever that it would be wrong to try to apply a single and simple solution to a multiform and complex problem.
In a speech of some length in Salisbury I tried to state the point of view of the United Kingdom Government on certain aspects of policy for which the British Government and Parliament have varying degrees of responsibility. In Cape Town, where the Prime Minister kindly invited me to address the Assembly and the Senate, I tried to set out courteously, but, I hope, clearly, the broad British point of view on the handling of these problems. Of course, I made it clear that in the Union we had no direct responsibility beyond that which every man of good will has towards his neighbours in trying to understand their problems. I made it clear, also, how deeply we treasure and value the Commonwealth connection and how great I believe the contribution of the Union can and will be towards the strength of the Commonwealth.
Perhaps, Sir, I might make two final observations. In the first place, I am more and more impressed by the need and duty of the people of the United Kingdom so to try to manage their economic affairs as to be able to make increasing contributions, from genuine savings and a favourable balance of trade, to the economic welfare of the less developed countries of the Commonwealth. The more we are able to improve our position at home the more we shall be able to follow the policy of the good neighbour overseas.
The second is this. We have to face, within a few months, certainly in this coming year, the next stage in attempting to reach some settlement, whether permanent or temporary, of the differences between Soviet Russia and the


Western Powers. I feel more than ever convinced, as a result of this journey, as well as my previous Commonwealth journeys, that the contribution which the United Kingdom Government may be able to make towards this—the supreme question which faces the world today—can be enhanced by the sense of comradeship and fellowship which we have in the Commonwealth. I am very glad to think that we shall have an opportunity of consulting with the other Commonwealth Prime Ministers in London in the week preceding the Summit Conference.

Mr. Gaitskell: May I, first, welcome the Prime Minister back from his African tour? We have always taken the view that these tours in the Commonwealth by the Prime Minister could be of immense value and it is apparent, I think, that the Prime Minister has learnt a good deal during the course of these last few weeks.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his statement in Cape Town in particular was warmly welcomed by this side of the House, particularly his references to the march of African nationalism, to the importance of a society based solely on individual merit, and his forthright denunciation of the policies of apartheid? May I express the hope that when he addresses this Parliament he will be equally clear and forthright? Is he aware, however, that declarations are all very well, but that the real question is what policies are pursued? In that connection may I put three questions to him?
The right hon. Gentleman will, I think, agree that one of the key points in the present situation in Africa is Nyasaland and he will not, I think, under-rate the importance of proceeding with constitutional advance there. This largely turns on being able to negotiate with African leaders. What are the right hon. Gentleman's intentions regarding the release of Dr. Banda and his colleagues? Is it not evident that their release is a necessary condition before effective negotiation can take place with the leaders of African opinion in Nyasaland? The sooner this is done, the better.
Secondly, reverting to a matter raised at Question Time, the Prime Minister made a speech in Salisbury, to which he has referred in his statement, about the

rights of the people of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland in relation to federation. We have all studied this speech with great care and we are very anxious to find out exactly what it means. Is he saying to the peoples of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland simply that they will not be forced against their will into a free and independent Federation, or, in other words, that without their consent Dominion status cannot be accorded to the Federation? Is that all he is saying, or is he saying that they will have a choice not only between federation as a free and independent Federation and a Federation as it now is, but also between entering a free and independent Federation and becoming self-governing independent States?
Thirdly, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia laid down quite specifically four conditions without which he would feel obliged to consult the opinion of his electorate before taking part even in the conference later in the year on the future of federation? Two of these conditions are that the Federation must remain governed by "civilized" people and that there must be no African Nationalist Governments in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. I put this straight question to the Prime Minister: is he going to accept the conditions laid down by Sir Edgar Whitehead?

The Prime Minister: On the position in Nyasaland and the possibility of bringing the emergency to an end, I would only say that I have no statement to make today.
The first interpretation which the right hon. Gentleman put upon my speech is correct. I said—and it is stated in the Preamble and elsewhere—that if there is to be a question of an independent Commonwealth country as we know it under the Statute of Westminster, then, as was intimated at the very start, the consent of the peoples of the two Northern Territories must be forthcoming. That is the right interpretation.
I have not seen what Sir Edgar Whitehead said. We have quite a difficult year ahead of us. We shall end having the Monckton Commission. We hope that that will help us. Then we shall have negotiations. What we hope to achieve is that these negotiations are entered into by all the people concerned


in the best possible spirit. I do not think that it would help if, every time a Prime Minister or notability out there made, or was alleged to have made, a Press conference statement, I made some answer to it.
We realise the difficulty and the responsibilities to everybody—all our peoples concerned, whether white, European, coloured or African—[HON. MEMBERS: "So do we."] So do hon. Members opposite. I do not believe that to try to make comment on this or that statement will help. What we have to do is to get these negotiations going under the best possible terms that we can. If we fail, then we fail. But we are going to try.

Mr. Gaitskell: The Prime Minister said he had not seen Sir Edgar White-head's statement. May I offer him a copy? This question has been raised in his absence and it is an extremely important matter. If he really has not seen the speech before, we would wish him to have time to consider it and we would like a statement at an early date commenting on what Sir Edgar Whitehead said.
In reference to the earlier question, does not the right hon. Gentleman feel that a limited statement about the future of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, to the negative but important effect that the people of those two territories will not be forced into a free and independent Federation against their will, is leaving far too much in the air the question of their future? Does it not imply that they will not have the right to self-government and independence without federation?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman asked me what I said and which of two interpretations was correct and I have told him. Having made my speech, I cannot alter it.

Mr. Gaitskell: Amplify it.

The Prime Minister: I hope that I do not have to make another speech.
I will study the Press report of an interview, but I repeat that I would much rather concentrate on trying to steer this ship home than having a continuing battle this and that way about what somebody did or did not say.

Sir T. Moore: Does the Prime Minister appreciate that we on this side of the House, and, indeed, people in the country as a whole, are deeply indebted to him for the courage, tact and endurance which he has shown on this uniquely successful trip?

Mr. Grimond: I am sure that we are all glad to see the Prime Minister back and hope that he had a happy birthday on the way. The right hon. Gentleman made it very clear in South Africa that he disapproves of apartheid. He has also said today that the Commonwealth has a great part to play in world affairs. Clearly, it is made more difficult for us to play that part when apartheid is practised by one of the most important members of the Commonwealth. Can the right hon. Gentleman at least give us any ray of hope or optimism that the present policies of apartheid practised in South Africa—which, as he said, came into being in the hope of combining together different nationalities and which has failed to some extent—may be diminished, or broken down, or improved in any way?

The Prime Minister: I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman's kind remarks about my return. Things seem to be going on very much in the same way as when I went away—very familiar and very friendly.

Mr. Manuel: Go away again.

The Prime Minister: Every word which any of us says about the Union is watched in the Union. I tried to put my point of view in a speech which I prepared carefully and which, I hoped, was clear but also courteous, as it should be when one is visiting an independent country of the Commonwealth which has been good enough to invite one. South Africa comes to our conferences and I hope that it will play a great Nile in the Commonwealth.
The hon. Gentleman asked me how I thought things might develop. The purpose of stating our views, and what I believe to be the views of all British people, is that they may be studied and thought about and, perhaps, be of some use in the development of opinion. If I have done anything in that direction, I am quite content, but I do not want to add words which might have the


opposite effect. I would rather leave it there and have, as I have, faith in the development of the future.

Mr. S. Silverman: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of us on this of the House and elsewhere, who have not always agreed with him about this or other matters, are very grateful to him for the courage and eloquence of his speech in Cape Town?
With regard to the very important last part of his speech, to which he obviously attached, as we all do, great importance, was any communication made to him, of any kind, or did he gather any evidence himself, as to whether any harm had been done, or was likely to be done on that aspect of the matter by the recent tests of nuclear weapons which our French ally has insisted, against all protests, in having on African territory?

The Prime Minister: I am being led into another difficult subject. We made our position clear at the United Nations when this matter was discussed. I still hope and believe that we shall be able to obtain, by one means or another, an agreement on the tests, whether at Geneva, where we are labouring on, or perhaps at the Summit—perhaps confirmed at the Summit.
The French Government thought fit to make their tests—as, indeed, we have made many, the Americans many more and the Russians many more still. I do not feel that it would be right for us to take any line except that of working for an agreement to which all countries could adhere, it is for those countries which have made the largest number of tests and who are now great nuclear Powers—those three countries—to take the lead. Otherwise, I cannot help thinking a little of the mote and the beam. We three countries have made a tremendous development of nuclear power. If only we can agree, we can go to other people and ask them, "Will you adhere and on what terms and how can it be arranged?"

Mr. C. Osborne: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the difficult and delicate questions in Africa would be

helped towards a solution if hon. Members exercised some restraint—[Interruption.] I am grateful to see the Leader of the Opposition is nodding his assent to the point which I am making—in the barbed questions they put, because matters which are raised in the House are exaggerated in different parts of Africa and given an importance which sometimes they do not deserve?

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Prime Minister aware that we are delighted to have him back in the House and that, for a Conservative Prime Minister, his tour was quite successful and that we congratulate him on it?
Why did he have arrangements made for seeing Dr. Hastings Banda suddenly cancelled when he was in Rhodesia and Nyasaland? Can he clear the muddy waters, which were revealed in the Answers given by the Colonial Secretary earlier this afternoon, and say when Dr. Hastings Banda is to be released?

The Prime Minister: No arrangements were made or cancelled. On the second question, I have nothing to add to what I have said.

Mrs. Castle: Does the Prime Minister really think that he can acquire a personal knowledge of the problems of these countries, their character and conditions, when, during a visit to any one of those countries, he met only the representatives of the white minority and no representative of the black majority, as in South Africa? Can he tell us whether he made any protest to the Prime Minister of South Africa about the nature of the itinerary arranged for him there?

The Prime Minister: I was very careful in what I said to disclaim any intention of posing as an expert after a few days' visit. I think that what I said was exactly the opposite. No one can do anything except to get a few impressions which may be helpful in reading the papers and telegrams which come. I do not pose as an expert. I do not propose to write a book, even if I can find a publisher.

RAILWAYS (NOTICE OF STRIKE)

Mr. Donnelly: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to raise a point of order on a matter of very great importance to all hon. Members. Because of the delay which we have experienced, I will be very brief and at the end of my remarks I shall seek your guidance and help, Sir.
This is a question of the way in which the possible railway strike was brought to the notice of the House. Last week, the House of Commons entered into a self-denying ordinance. It was agreed by most hon. Members that, while it was possible to have some form of settlement and while negotiations were continuing, the House should enter into a self-denying ordinance.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I should not be fair to other hon. Members unless I asked the hon. Member to state what his point of order is.

Mr. Donnelly: My point of order, Mr. Speaker, is that I am seeking your guidance in a matter affecting the whole House. Last week we entered into a self-denying ordinance when we were threatened with a railway strike. We appreciated that it had a sound basis. When the House met yesterday, it would have been perfectly reasonable, because of the ordinance that the House entered into, for us to have had some form of statement from the Government about the railway strike.
The basis of my point of order is that this was possibly a grave national emergency which affected everybody in every part of the country. The House did not discuss it while the emergency was pending. When the emergency was

over it was only right and proper that a statement should have been made to the House. We are ultimately answerable to the nation for some of the various aspects of the settlement—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry, but I cannot, within the rules of the House, allow the hon. Member to address me except on a point of order. I gladly do that, but he must make it plain that it is a point of order.

Mr. Donnelly: I apologise, Mr. Speaker. I will make it very brief and clear. The point is that the settlement has been discussed in every other forum. It has been discussed on the radio, on television, in the newspapers, and by hon. Members in all parts of the country on all sorts of platforms, but it has not been discussed in the House. The point of order that I wish to address to you, Mr. Speaker, is how we are to retain the attention of the nation if a crisis can come and go without being discussed in the House. What are you, as Speaker of the House of Commons, doing about safeguarding the interests and rights of hon. Members on both sides of the House?

Mr. Speaker: My first duty in safeguarding the rights of hon. Members is not to allow a matter which is not a point of order to be raised in the guise of a point of order. I do not hear a point of order in what the hon. Member has been saying to me. For his assistance, I would suggest that the House and not the Chair decides what it should discuss, except in very exceptional circumstances. The hon. Member might consider addressing himself to the Leader of the House privately, or raising the matter when we have a discussion on business on Thursday.

TRANSPORT ACT, 1947 (AMENDMENT)

4.3 p.m.

Mr. John Baird: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to enable the British Transport Commission to manufacture and repair locomotives and rolling stock for use other than by the Commission.
During the last few weeks this country has been faced with what might have been a national catastrophe—a railway strike. The problems facing British Railways are still there, and have to be solved. We are only tinkering with the problem just now.
The Bill I am asking leave to introduce will make only a small contribution to the problem, but I hope that, at the same time, it will do something to alleviate the difficulties of British Railways. Under the Transport Act, 1947, British Railways are allowed to manufacture locomotives and rolling stock only for use by themselves. They are not allowed to manufacture for sale or export. If the Bill is accepted by the House, British Railways will have the right to manufacture locomotives for sale and for use by themselves.
A large number of private firms in this country manufacture rolling stock, and it is not my intention to disrupt those firms in any way. I do not want to interfere with them. They are doing a good job, but surely British Railways, if they so desired, should have the right to manufacture not only locomotives, but rolling stock. I am, however, concerned chiefly with the manufacture of locomotives, which has always been the prerogative of British Railways.
I do not know whether the House as a whole realises it, but some hon. Gentlemen opposite have been faced with this problem. There is grave disquiet in railway towns today about British Railways' modernisation plans. There will be a lot of redundancy in the locomotive shops. There is a grave fear of unemployment and, what is more important, a large number of skilled workmen who have been trained—and some of them who have followed in their father's footsteps—in the manufacture of locomotives will be lost to British Railways. A large number of locomotive shops will be closed

and staff dismissed under the modernisation plan. The manufacture of new diesel engines is to be undertaken to a great extent by private enterprise.
That, of course, is in line with Government policy. The Government intend to hive off the more prosperous aspects of the nationalised industries and hand them back to private enterprise. This is true not only of the manufacture of locomotives and diesel engines. The Government are also handing back to the Pullman Car Company much of the dining car trade. Those services are still run by private enterprise, although the Government have a controlling interest.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro: A very good thing.

Mr. Baird: The other day the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) spoke about selling land belonging to British Railways to private enterprise.

Mr. Nabarro: I must correct the hon. Member. I have never made a proposition of that kind, either publicly or privately.

Mr. Baird: It is at least in line with the argument which the hon Gentleman has been putting forward since he came into the House.
It is the deliberate policy of Her Majesty's Government to hand back to private enterprise the more lucrative aspects of the nationalised industries.

Mr. Nabarro: That is better

Mr. Baird: The coming of diesel traction has raised a grave problem. British Railways still have locomotive shops, but the majority of these diesel engines will be manufactured by private enterprise. The argument is that under the Transport Act, 1947, British Railways are allowed to manufacture for use and not for export, and, therefore, the manufacture of diesel engines must be given to private enterprise because there is a growing market overseas for diesel engines and we must have a home market in which to experiment if we are to sell these diesel engines. Therefore, private enterprise must get the majority of the new engines which are being manufactured.
I am all against that. I believe that, instead of constricting the nationalised industries, we should expand them.

Mr. Nabarro: I do not.

Mr. Baird: I know. That is where we disagree.
The nationalisation Acts which were passed between 1945 and 1950 are not sacrosanct. Many mistakes were made, but they were not of a kind which would bolster the arguments of the hon. Member for Kidderminster. Those Acts did not give the nationalised industries enough power. The weakness about nationalisation arises because we nationalised without socialising. I want to see more power given to the nationalised industries.
There is much disquiet about the situation in railway locomotive workshop towns today. Two or three weeks ago a meeting was held which was attended by representatives of all the towns which had railway locomotive workshops. Everyone was worried because of the possibility of unemployment and redundancy. Representatives came from Eastleigh—which is represented by a Conservative Member—Crewe, Swindon, Wolverhampton and Darlington. Wolverhampton considered the matter to be so important that it was represented by the mayor, the town clerk, the chairman of the Trade Council and other leading councillors, and I believe that Crewe sent similar representatives. A grave problem faces British Railways, because highly skilled staff is being made redundant and is dispersing into other industries, where its labour will not be nearly so valuable to the nation.
British Railways locomotive workshops have some of the most modern equipment in the country. They have skilled workmen and managements. I sometimes wonder whether the so-called modernisation plan is not really a plan to dismantle rather than to modernise British Railways are a national asset, whatever hon. Members opposite may say. I want to see them expanded instead of being dismantled. That is the only way we can solve the problem of British transport.
The Bill will strengthen British Railways by giving them an opportunity to go into the markets of the world and use their highly skilled labour, technical power and equipment to sell their goods. I want to see nationalisation strengthened, and not weakened.

4.13 p.m.

Mr. William Shepherd: I oppose the Motion. I would make it clear at once that I have no financial interest in the making of locomotives, carriages or wagons. I do not propose to ask the House to reject the Motion because of any prejudice against nationalisation. Whether a business should indulge in extraneous activities is a question to be decided upon the basis of widely differing facts. It depends whether the business is heavily pressed at the time, whether it has the organisation to deal with extraneous activities, and what its financial position is, besides many other considerations.
I suggest that we should oppose the Bill, first, on the ground of national interest; secondly, on the ground of the interests of the Commission; and, thirdly, because it is causing grave anxiety in the 50 or more private enterprise workshops which have been established to make these goods. I have no prejudice against nationalisation; indeed, my only pride and prejudice arises from the fact that I come from Crewe, and, therefore, have some knowledge of these affairs.
The Bill is against the national interest, first, because it would increase the amount of available capacity for making locomotives, carriages and wagons, and we do not want that. If we increase that capacity, there will be a surplus within a relatively short time. We shall not be serving the national interest by establishing a capacity beyond our requirements. Secondly, because of its set-up, the Commission is not suited to indulge in the sale of locomotives overseas.
This requires very special procedures; it requires special staffs, brochures and contacts of all kinds, and the Commission is not equipped to engage in such extraneous activities. Moreover, a severe limitation has been placed upon what it can do. The hon. Member mentioned the question of modern locomotives. Even if the Commission started to make locomotives for export it would have to go to existing private manufacturers for as much as two-thirds of its requirements.
It is wrong to argue that if the Commission is not allowed this extension undue hardship will be suffered by


those who are engaged in making locomotives in the Commission's workshops. Locomotive manufacture plays a very small part in the sum total of work done in railway workshops. Some people may say that it accounts for 6 per cent., and others will say 10 per cent., but at any rate it can safely be said that 90 per cent. of railway workshop work relates to maintenance and not to new construction.

Mr. David Price: Can my hon. Friend explain why it is against the national interest for a heavy engineering machine shop—which is what a locomotive workshop is—to take up slack as any commercial engineering works is free to do? As things are at present the Commission is not allowed to do this. That is the point behind the proposed Bill. If British Railways are required to operate commercially, why should they not be allowed to do the same as any other machine workshop?

Mr. Shepherd: There is no basic reason why capacity should not be used, except that in providing the equipment necessary to make new locomotives the Commission will be providing equipment which will not be required in a few years' time, when we have carried out most of our modernisation programme. This is a question not of nationalisation, but of sound business judgment. It is essential that we should condition the size of our manufacturing plants to suit our requirements.
The private manufacturers of locomotives have had to depend almost entirely upon export orders for the past thirty years. They have been in an exceedingly difficult situation. Their position has become even more difficult now. For the past decade or so we have had a preferred market overseas, with Colonies and various British establishments ordering for British sources, but that market does not exist today. It is now exceedingly difficult for private manufacturers to sell locomotives overseas. If we take away from them the small consolation that they now have

many of these private workshops will have no further basis for existence.

It would be highly undesirable to place in jeopardy these privately owned manufacturing plants, which are of great value to the community and upon which many people depend for their livelihoods. If we allow the Commission to proceed as it is at present, manufacturing rather more than half of its main locomotive requirements in its own workshops, there will be enough work for all the men who seek work in those workshops.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: Nonsense. The hon. Member ought to go there and ask them.

Mr. Shepherd: If there is some diversion of employment from a single source to a wider source it would not, in my view, be to the detriment of those who work in railway towns. I feel that there is a grave disadvantage, and I speak as one who comes from Crewe.

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Speaker: Order. No standing Order permits me to hear several hon. Members at once and this Standing Order permits me to hear a short statement only in opposition.

Mr. Shepherd: I was saying that I think that it is not in the interest of these towns to be dependent utterly upon one source of employment. It is my strong conviction that if this situation is allowed to rest as now, with the Transport Commission supplying its own requirements as to about 60 per cent. and allowing the private operators to have a small market in this country with some assistance for their export drive, this will be, in the long run, a fair balance between private and public enterprise. On those grounds, I ask the House to reject the Motion.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 12 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Cornmittees at commencement of Public Business):—

The House divided: Ayes 135, Noes 189.

Division No. 41.]
AYES
[4.22 p.m.


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Bourne-Arton, A.
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)


Awbery, Stan
Boyden, James
Callaghan, James


Bacon, Miss Alice
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Castle, Mrs. Barbara


Benn, Hn. A. Wedgwood (Brist' I, S. E.)
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Chetwynd, George


Blackburn, F.
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Cliffe, Michael




Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)
Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Ross, William


Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Royle, Charles (Salford, West)


Darling, George
Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Kelley, Richard
Short, Edward


Deer, George
Kenyon, Clifford
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)


Dempsey, James
Lawson, George
Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)


Dodds, Norman
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Small, William


Donnelly, Desmond
Lipton, Marcus
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John
Logan, David
Snow, Julian


Evans, Albert
Longbottom, Charles
Spriggs, Leslie


Finch, Harold
Loughlin, Charles
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Fletcher, Eric
McCann, John
Stonehouse, John


Foot, Dingle
MacColl, James
Stones, William


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh
McInnes, James
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)


Ginsburg, David
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Swingler, Stephen


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Mackie, John
Sylvester, George


Gourlay, Harry
McLeavy, Frank
Symonds, J. B.


Greenwood, Anthony
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Grey, Charles
Manuel, A. C.
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Mapp, Charles
Thornton, Ernest


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Marsh, Richard
Wainwright, Edwin


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Millan, Bruce
Warbey, William


Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Monslow, Walter
Watkins, Tudor


Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Moody, A. S.
Weitzman, David


Hayman, F. H.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Healey, Denis
Oliver, G. H.
Wheeldon, W. E.


Herbison, Miss Margaret
Owen, Will
Whitlock, William


Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Peart, Frederick
Wigg, George


Hilton, A. V.
Plummer, Sir Leslie
Wilkins, W. A.


Holman, Percy
Prentice, R. E.
Willey, Frederick


Howell, Charles A.
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Hoy, James H.
Proctor, W. T.
Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)


Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Rankin, John
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Redhead, E. C.
Woof, Robert


Hunter, A. E.
Reid, William
Wyatt, Woodrow


Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Reynolds, G. W.
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Robens, Rt. Hon. Alfred



Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Mr. Scholefield Allen and Mr. Baird.




NOES


Agnew, Sir Peter
Costain, A. P.
Hocking, Philip N.


Aitken, W. T.
Courtney, Cdr. Anthony
Holland, Philip


Allason, James
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Hollingworth, John


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Critchley, Julian
Hopkins, Alan


Atkins, Humphrey
Currie, G. B. H.
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)


Balniel, Lord
Dance, James
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John


Barlow, Sir John
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Hurd, Sir Anthony


Barter, John
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.
Hutchison, Michael Clark


Batsford, Brian
Doughty, Charles
Jackson, John


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Drayson, G. B.
James, David


Bell, Ronald (S. Bucks.)
Duthie, Sir William
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Eden, John
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos &amp; Fhm)
Elliott, R. W.
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)


Berkeley, Humphry
Emery, Peter
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey


Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald (Toxteth)
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Kerby, Capt. Henry


Biggs-Davison, John
Farey-Jones, F. W.
Kerr, Sir Hamilton


Bingham, R. M.
Farr, John
Kershaw, Anthony


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Kirk, Peter


Bossom, Clive
Freeth, Denzil
Lindsay, Martin


Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)
Gammans, Lady
Litchfield, Capt. John


Box, Donald
Gardner, Edward
Loveys, Walter H.


Braine, Bernard
Gibson-Watt, David
Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby


Brewis, John
Glover, Sir Douglas
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)
MacArthur, Ian


Browne, Percy (Torrington)
Goodhart, Philip
McLaren, Martin


Bullard, Denys
Goodhew, Victor
McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia


Burden, F. A.
Gower, Raymond
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute &amp; N. Ayrs.)


Butcher, Sir Herbert
Grant, Rt. Hon. William (Woodside)
McMaster, Stanley


Carr, Compton (Barons Court)
Green, Alan
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)


Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Gresham Cooke, R.
Maginnis, John E.


Channon, H. P. G.
Grimond, J.
Maitland, Cdr. J. W.


Chataway, Christopher
Grimston, Sir Robert
Marten, Neil


Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.


Cleaver, Leonard
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Mills, Stratton


Cole, Norman
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macolesf'd)
Morrison, John


Collard, Richard
Hendry, Forbes
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles


Cooke, Robert
Hicks Beach, Maj. W.
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey


Cordle, John
Hiley, Joseph
Nugent, Sir Richard


Corfield, F. V.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie







Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Simon, Sir Jocelyn
Turner, Colin


Osborne, Cyril (Louth)
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd &amp; Chiswick)
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Page, Graham
Stanley, Hon. Richard
Vaughan-Morgan, Sir John


Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)
Stodart, J. A.
Vickers, Miss Joan


Peel, John
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm
Wade, Donald


Percival, Ian
Storey, Sir Samuel
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)


Peyton, John
Studholme, Sir Henry
Wall, Patrick


Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth
Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)
Watts, James


Pilkington, Capt. Richard
Sumner, Donald (Orpington)
Webster, David


Pitt, Miss Edith
Tapsell, Peter
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Pott, Percivall
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Powell, J. Enoch
Teeling, William
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Prior, J. M. L.
Temple, John M.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Proudfoot, Wilfred
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Ramsden, James
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter
Woodhouse, C. M.


Rees, Hugh
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin
Woodnutt, Mark


Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)
Thorpe, Jeremy
Worsley, Marcus


Roots, William
Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)



Seymour, Leslie
Tilney, John (Wavertree)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Nabarro and Mr. Shepherd.

Orders of the Day — COAL INDUSTRY BILL

As amended (in the Standing Cornmittee), considered.

4.31 p.m.

The Minister of Power (Mr. Richard Wood): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
This Motion will give me the opportunity, as far as it is in order, to look again at the progress of the industry, because it is nearly three months since we had our general debate on the Second Reading of the Bill, and these are three months in a year that everyone agrees to be of immense importance to the industry.
I made it clear in my speech on Second Reading, on 23rd November last, that my Department had co-operated in the estimate that the Coal Board made in its "Revised Plan for Coal"—an estimate on which the provisions of the Bill are based—which put the likely demand for coal in 1965 at between 200 million and 215 million tons. On that occasion, I said that the Government had accepted that estimate as a "reasonable basis for planning."
I went on to say that for this year, 1960, the Board had planned to produce 188 million tons of deep-mined coal, and 7 million tons of opencast—a total of 195 million tons against a demand estimated by the Board at 196 million tons. I still remain of the opinion, three months later, that the Board's estimates represent now, in February, the best basis for our future plans, but in the intervening three months I have had certain doubts cast on these figures from both sides of the House and I would very much like to say something about those doubts.
I am the first to agree that forecasting the demand for any product—indeed, any kind of prophecy at all—is a very dangerous thing to do, but I have constantly re-examined these Coal Board estimates, which I stated last year to be a reasonable basis for planning, I shall continue to re-examine them in the future, and my opinion at the moment is that the evidence for the estimates is a good deal stronger than the evidence against them.
They are based on several assumptions, none of which, I think, is unreasonable to make. The first assumption is that in the coming year there will be less run-down in distributed stocks. The second is that the present economic activity will continue at a high level. The third concerns something that none can know—whether or not it is likely that the weather in 1960 will be less warm than it was in 1959. The last assumption is that exports of coal will be rather above the very low level at which they ran last year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), who may try to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, in the debate, has suggested that, in 1960, 25 million tons of coal will be added to the stocks, and has thus implied that, in spite of all the measures the Board is taking to bring that production more into line with demand, production in 1960 will, in fact, be 8 million tons greater than last year. My hon. Friend is certainly entitled to his opinions, but he will be aware that the Board has taken steps to reduce production by about 11 million tons. I would, therefore, be surprised, to say the least, if the Board over-produced on the scale suggested by my hon. Friend—

Mr Gerald Nabarro: My right hon. Friend will not assume from my silence at this moment that I accept his interpretation of the interpretation that I previously placed on the situation, or that he is correctly stating my figures.

Mr. Wood: I certainly never base any assumptions on the silence of my hon. Friend. I would merely state that, at the moment, both production and consumption are broadly in line with the Coal Board's estimates.
I am aware, and I should like to deal with the matter at once, that hon. Gentlemen may point out that inland consumption in the first four weeks of this year, is, I understand, about 3½ per cent. less than it was last year. They may suggest that this vitiates the premises on which the estimates are based, but I think that it is true to say that in 1959 the one cold period occurred in the first few weeks of the year, and that consumption in January, 1959, was inflated as a result. I honestly do not think that we can base


any reliable comparison between the two years on comparisons of these four weeks alone, when the weather played quite a considerable part.
Some hon. Members rightly attach considerable importance to the speed of the run-down of stocks. My hon. Friend, among others, attaches importance to the speed at which the stocks are diminished. I am glad to say that the total run-down of both distributed and undistributed stocks was quicker in December and January—that is to say, in the eight weeks—than in a comparable period in any recent year. Perhaps I may give the figures for the last five or six years of the stock-lift of undistributed stocks—and it is of the stock-lift of undistributed stocks that I am talking for the moment.
The figures are quite interesting. In December, 1953, and January, 1954, the figure was 10,000 tons. In the next year, stocks increased in this period by 32,000 tons, and in the next three years there were stock-lifts varying between 83,000 tans and 243,000 tons. Last year the stock-build, the addition to stocks, in these two months was 782,000 tons. The comparison with this year is that there has been a stock-lift in this period of 1½ million tons, which is of a completely different order than the stock-lift or stock-build in previous years.
I know that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster) is interested in this problem. The figures I have given refer to undistributed stocks only. In addition, there has been a lifting in December and January last of more than 3 million tons of distributed stocks. The total stock-lift in this period has averaged a little over ½ million tons a week. It is obviously normal to have a fall in distributed stocks at this time the winter, which is balanced by a corresponding increase in the summer, but the fall in total stocks in recent weeks has been fully in accord with expectations that undistributed stocks at the end of 1960 will, in fact, be lower than they were at the beginning of the year.

Mr. Bernard Taylor: The right hon. Gentleman gave us an illustration only a week ago yesterday, when he said that the undistributed stocks, for instance, of the east Midland coalfields

were 3·8 million tons more for January this year than for January, 1959.

Mr. Wood: I should have to look at the exact figures, but I have been trying to compare the run-down of stocks in the country as a whole in December and January compared with the figure at which they stood at the beginning of December, the global figure. It is a comparison from the beginning of December to the end of January of this year with other years. That is not strictly comparable with the figures I gave the hon. Member the other day.
During the last few weeks I have discovered a matter which is causing some of my hon. Friends—and, no doubt, some hon. Members opposite—a certain amount of concern. It is the question of safety from deterioration of coal stocks which are at present on the ground. I noticed that my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster recently suggested that the coal at present in stock will deteriorate by about 25 per cent. over a two-year period. I have made very careful inquiries into this and should like to give the House the result of those inquiries. I have discovered, not greatly to my surprise, that the extra handling involved in stocking the coal certainly results in some degradation, which reduces the market value of the coal stocked. There is also—again, not greatly to my surprise—some loss in calorific value due to oxidisation.
I have discovered that my Scientific Advisory Council advised my predecessor that it was perfectly satisfied that under good storage conditions the average loss of calorific value of coal stocked was less than 2 per cent. a year. It said at the same time—here I wish to be perfectly fair and honest with the House that—with bad storage coal might deteriorate a great deal more quickly. In fact, the Fuel Research Station had records of a 10 per cent. loss in two months where spontaneous combustion was taking place.
I know that my hon. Friend is considerably interested in spontaneous combustion, but I wish to assure him that it takes place most infrequently and that where it does take place—I think that he was interested in one particular dump of coal—the hot coal is very quickly removed. The average loss in calorific


value, taking the stocks over the country as a whole, is consequently small.
The advice I have received from the Scientific Advisory Committee is borne out by three investigations carried out before the war by Coal Survey, the Fuel Research Station and I.C.I. These experiments extended over a period of up to five years, covering a considerable variety of different kinds of coal. Their discoveries bore out what I suggested to be true about deterioration, that the loss of calorific value is between 15 per cent. to 1 per cent. a year. That is very very much below the figure mentioned by my hon. Friend, but they found that in the very smallest coal—less than 1/20th of an inch—there was a greater deterioration. That does not apply to the situation at the moment, because only a very small proportion of the stocks is of coal of this very small size.
I am convinced that the correct techniques of storing coal are well understood nowadays and are being applied by the National Coal Board. It is carefully watching the temperature of this coal and is prepared quickly to take action with any part of a dump of coal which shows signs of overheating. The Board tells me that it is quite satisfied that over the stocks as a whole the average deterioration in calorific value is not more than 1 per cent. a year. On the basis not only of my own inquiries, but of earlier experiments carried out before the war, I see no reason to dispute the Board's figure.
Another matter which has exercised hon. Members is the allied question of the value of these stocks of coal. When the Board values stocks for its published balance sheet, it subtracts from current market value an allowance to cover degradation and expected loss of calorific value based on the estimates to which I have referred. Secondly, it allows something for all double handling and marketing expenses and adds a general contingency provision. Therefore, the average valuation—I think it important that we should have the figure quite clear—which the Board places on its coal stocks is about £3 6s. a ton. The valuation of its stocks of coke is rather higher, £5 4s. a ton—making the average for stocks of coal and coke about £4 a ton.
I have no wish to keep the House, but merely to commend the Bill. Its purpose is to try to increase the efficiency of the industry and to increase during the next few years the competitive power of coal. Things have been said in earlier debates which have suggested that some hon. Members, particularly hon. Friends of mine, are not anxious to make the nationalised industries efficient. I certainly cannot speak for all hon. Members, but I can speak for myself. I have come to the firm conclusion that there is nothing which could conceivably be gained—economically, politically or in any other way—from the inefficiency of any industry.
We very resolutely opposed nationalisation. We still oppose nationalisation—and I understand that even some hon. Members opposite are beginning to have some doubts about nationalisation—but we do not intend to denationalise the coal industry. I am convinced, and I believe that the nation agrees, that our object must be to help the industry and the other nationalised industries towards greater efficiency. That is, as I see it, the object of the Bill, and I therefore ask the House to give it its Third Reading.

4.48 p.m.

Mr. Harold Finch: We had a very full discussion of this Bill both on Second Reading and in Cornmittee, when we debated the various aspects of the problems facing the mining industry at this time. It is not my intention to speak at any length on Third Reading, but it is necessary now to draw the attention of the House to some important features connected with the Bill.
I must point out that this Measure merely provides for a loan to the industry, a loan which has to be repaid with interest. It is a matter of raising a loan for the industry. Even so, the Bill provides for only about one-quarter of the capital investment for the next five years. The remaining three-quarters will be found from the resources of the Coal Board.
These borrowing powers must be distinguished from subsidies. A line must be drawn between a loan and a subsidy, such as that which is being given to the agricultural, aircraft and cotton industries. This matter of subsidy and loan will, I am sure, have the attention


of the House in months to come. Here we are asking only for a loan, not for national assistance to private industry, such as agriculture, aircraft and cotton. The Bill will not cost the taxpayer one penny. This is a loan.
That cannot be said of some of the subsidies given to private enterprise, which are costing the taxpayer money. Right from the inception of nationalisation, this industry has not cost the taxpayer a penny. During private ownership, there were times when the coal owners came to the Government for assistance and got it and the mining industry, under private ownership, did cost the nation money. Under nationalisation, it has not done so.
As I said in Committee, and as the Minister has pointed out, the Bill is to enable the Coal Board to fulfil its "Revised Plan for Coal". It will enable the Board further to increase its efficiency and productivity and to reduce costs and will help it in its efforts to compete with oil. That is the purpose of the revised plan on which the borrowing powers in the Bill are based. In advocating the need for a fuel policy, some hon. Members opposite said that the industry must make itself efficient to compete with oil. The Bill proposes to add to the efficiency of the programme of the Coal Board. Yet, some hon. Members opposite were prepared to diminish the borrowing powers of the Board and thus cripple it in its efforts to fight oil.
Hon. Members opposite have argued that these loans for capital expenditure are not getting results. The House will, I am sure, appreciate that the coal industry must have long-term planning. It is not possible to reconstruct pits, or to sink new ones in a few months. This takes years. However, past capital expenditure is now bearing results. Output per man-shift overall increased by well over 5 per cent. in 1959 compared with the previous year. At the face, output went up by 6 per cent., the highest increase for more than thirty years. We are now reaping the fruits of capital expenditure.
Since nationalisation, productivity has risen by 30 per cent. This improvement in productivity has helped to lower production costs by 1s. 9d. a ton compared with 1958. These are substantial

achievements. If the demand for coal equals approximately that estimated by the Board during the next five years, there are good prospects of productivity rising still further.
On these results, the Government should congratulate the Coal Board. They should congratulate the miners on their achievements during the past few years. The results are a credit to the coal mining industry. It must be realised that coal mining is an extractive industry. Considerable investment is required each year simply to maintain existing capacity. Every ton of coal which is taken out of a pit makes it more difficult to mine the next ton. The law of diminishing returns must operate in this industry. Therefore, a part of this capital expenditure under the Bill must be used for maintaining as well as increasing output.
Much capital expenditure has been involved in reconstruction and the sinking of new pits. Such expenditure was essential because there was very little reconstruction for years prior to nationalisation. Much of this capital expenditure has been necessary, because, as it is stated in the Reid Report, the industry was suffering from age and bad planning. Prior to nationalisation, not one pit was sunk for thirty years. The industry generally was in a derelict condition. Huge sums of money had to be spent to put the industry on anything like a normal footing.
Pits have been sunk in recent years and these borrowing powers will give the Board the opportunity to proceed with its programme and to construct further pits similar to that which Sir James Bowman opened recently, the Brynlliw Colliery, near Swansea. This is a classic example. The work has been completed nine months ahead of schedule. The industrial correspondent of the Western Mail and South Wales News said on Saturday:
I toured the colliery yesterday and saw how coal is being mined the modern way, untouched by hand. Mine cars pull electric motors travelling at 15 miles per hour, taking miners to the coal face, and unload coal by remote control at pit bottom.
That is a different sort of colliery from the ones which we had in the inter-war years.

Mr. James Griffiths: If I may remind my hon. Friend, this is one


of the pits which was closed in the early 'twenties by private enterprise. It has been reopened under nationalisation.

Mr. Finch: This is the way to make the industry efficient. More collieries of this kind will be opened in the near future.
During 1959, 25 major colliery reconstructions were substantially completed, making the total 127 since the reconstruction programme began in 1947. The number of schemes for new collieries and drift mines and the construction of new collieries in progress at the end of the year was 146. A lot of money has been spent on improving working conditions and the safety of the men in the industry, and I am sure that the House will agree that this capital expenditure is essential. I am confident that the Coal Board's plan will produce results in the near future.
We are all concerned about the stocking of coal, but had coal not been stocked we should have been faced with considerable unemployment in the coalfield. Large sums of money would have had to be paid in unemployment benefit. The lower purchasing power of the £ would have percolated through the economy generally and we should have been faced with serious social and industrial consequences if coal had not been stocked, however regrettable that may be.
The Coal Board has taken the burden from the country. The Board need not have stocked coal. It could have put men on short time, but it preferred not to do so. It bore the brunt of the burden by paying for the stocking of coal. If it had not been for the stocking of coal, there is no doubt that the industry would have shown a profit this year. While we are very much concerned about the position, we are glad to hear from the Minister that there is some decline in the stocking of coal.
I know that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has always been interested in the question of stocking, but I have always had difficulty in following him in this matter. Not so long ago, he thought that that was a proper and efficient course to take. Yet, on Second Reading, or in Committee, he was very critical of the increase in stocking. What did he say on 1st December, 1958?

If we are to mine 200 million tons of coal a year, the rationalised figure I referred to, I would not regard it as unreasonable to have an aggregation of distributed and undistributed stocks of 50 million tons, which is one-quarter of a year's production. Any prudent business engaged in large-scale operations normally keeps about three months' stocks in hand at any one time, and 50 million tons is 12 million tons more than the 38 million tons which we have today."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd December, 1958; Vol. 596, c. 1235.]

Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Gentleman has omitted to refer to my response to that point on 27th January, 1960. I said:
I have been absolutely consistent. I have with me the speech that I made on 3rd December, 1958. I said that three months' stocks would be about the right figure and that 50 million tons would be reasonable as an aggregation of distributed and undistributed stocks. I still hold this view. These Amendments are designed to prevent a further increase in the stocks after next April"—
that is, April, 1960—
above 50 million tons."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th January, 1960; Vol. 616, c. 262.]
The whole of my efforts in Committee were devoted to preventing a rise in stocks above 50 million tons, which I regard as the maximum that the nation may prudently and judiciously hold.

Mr. Finch: The hon. Member must now be satisfied with the position.

Mr. Nabarro: I am.

Mr. Finch: I am very pleased to know that, because throughout the Committee stage of the Bill a great deal of criticism was levelled against the Coal Board in such circumstances.
We support the Bill. It is essential to the industry to enable it to get on with its programme, not that we regard the Bill as meeting the situation. We do not. We do not think that this Measure in itself is sufficient. We are still faced with a very serious position in the industry. We should be glad if the Government would underpin the Coal Board plan and help it by adopting a fuel policy in which the demand for coal can be sustained in these circumstances.

5.3 p.m.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro: I am so surprised to have been called at this stage of our deliberations that I have not quite overtaken the intervention I made a few moments ago in the speech


of the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch). Throughout our deliberations on the Bill there has been a cleavage of opinion between my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power and myself.

Mr. J. B. Symonds: That is normal.

Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Member says that it is normal, and he is right. It has been normal during the last few years.
In my speech on Second reading I drew attention to the fact that the corpses of former Ministers of Fuel and Power littered the Tory benches. They litter the Tory benches because successive Ministers of Fuel and Power have consistently been wrong in their future estimates concerning the coal mining industry. That is why there has been a cleavage of opinion between my right hon. Friend and myself dating from our respective Second Reading speeches on 23rd November last and the Committee stage speeches on 27th January; and I have no doubt that there will be a cleavage of opinion this afternoon.
I stress the word "opinion". My right hon. Friend is advised by the senior officers of the National Coal Board. I take no exception to the fact that they give him advice.

Mr. E. G. Willis: That is very good of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Nabarro: Yes, it is very good of me. I take no exception to the fact that they give advice to my right hon. Friend, but I do not think that they are always as accurate as they might be.
My right hon. Friend maintains a small coterie of ministerial advisers who act as liaison officers between himself and the heads of the nationalised fuel and power boards. As was so clearly demonstrated in the book published a few months ago by Mr. Kelf-Cohen, who was for many years the second senior civil servant at the Ministry of Fuel and Power, those ministerial officers are very largely bound by the advice, in the context of coal, which comes to them from Hobart House.
The cleavage of opinion between my right hon. Friend and myself on the Bill has been fundamental. First, my right hon. Friend has vouchsafed to the House that in 1960 there will be a consumption of coal of 196 million tons, a production

of coal of 195 million tons, and, therefore, stocks of coal will decline by only 1 million tons. We are at the coldest time of the winter at present. We have about six weeks of the coal winter to run.
From 1st April stocks will begin to rise. [An HON. MEMBER: "The hon. Member said that last week."] I said it last week and I say it again, because in the Bill we are dealing with very large sums of money which, contrary to the view expressed by the hon. Member for Bedwellty, ultimately have to be found not from the Consolidated Fund resources but from the taxpayers' purse. They may be losses, but the Bill is an exercise in deficit financing for a nationalised industry. It is exactly analogous to deficit financing on the railways.
It is no good my right hon. Friend shaking his head in disagreement. He is disagreeing with me already, thus demonstrating once again the cleavage of opinion between us. A few weeks ago I had to drag an admission from his entrails, and reluctantly he gave way to me. He had said that the losses on the Coal Board's accounts up to the end of 1958 were about £28 million. I told him that I calculated that by the end of 1959 the losses forward would rise to £50 million. He indicated dissent at first, shaking his head as he has shaken it this afternoon. Finally, he capitulated and wrote me a letter confirming that they would be about £50 million up to the end of 1959.
Our cleavage of opinion is the extent of the losses in the current year. My right hon. Friend will not even confide to the House—I regard it as a dereliction of his duty that he refuses to do so—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, I repeat the words. I regard it as a dereliction of his duty that he refuses to do so. He will not give the House an opinion on whether the Board is likely to make a profit or a loss this year. My interpretation of the position is that the Board will make a substantial loss during the year 1960, having regard to the level of stocks—

Mr. B. Taylor: Does the hon. Gentleman mean an operating loss or a loss after commitments, such as interest payments—not only to the old coal owners, but to the royalty owners—and subsidence charges and other added


burdens? I am anxious that we should have a clear picture.

Mr. Nabarro: I will be perfectly clear. The Board will make a trading loss this year after all charges. The right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) framed the Statute in 1947 and wrote into it the provision that the Board should pay its way, taking year by year. He was responsible for putting interest charges to the account of the Board. Do not let any of us be mealy-mouthed about it. We are all agreed about the basis, that the Board should pay its way taking year with year. The losses forward up to the end of 1959 were £50 million.
My right hon. Friend will not tell the House his estimate of the loss for the current year. He is shaking his head again, indicating that he will not do so. I believe that it is a dereliction of duty on his part not to tell the House that the Board is likely to add to its £50 million losses in the current year. That is the first cleavage of opinion between us.
The second cleavage of opinion between us is in regard to stocks. Of course, I have said that a proper stock at the beginning of the coal winter, that is to say, November in each year, should be a quarter's reserve. That is 50 million tons on an annual production of 200 million tons. My Amendments in Committee were designed to prevent the very real danger of these stocks rising above 50 million tons after 1st April next.
My right hon. Friend says that stocks will be reduced by 1 million tons during the whole of 1960. I say that stocks are much more likely to rise during 1960. I have said that, if production proved to be higher than 195 million tons and consumption proved to be lower than 196 million tons—the ministerial estimates—then stocks would rise sharply. I estimated that they might possibly rise to 75 million tons.

Mr. Finch: rose—

Mr. Nabarro: I ask the hon. Gentleman to let me finish.
The Minister pooh-poohs that. His Parliamentary Secretary had the impertinence to say that statements of that kind were wild. The Parliamentary Secretary, as an earnest of his personal faith in the

nationalisation of the coal industry, promptly left the coal industry on nationalisation. That is how much he supports nationalised coal.

Mr. Finch: rose—

Mr. Nabarro: I will give way in a moment.

Mr. B. Taylor: It is a long moment.

Mr. Nabarro: The effluxion of time will show whether the Parliamentary Secretary is the wilder of the two of us. I rest content that I have always been opposed to deficit financing of nationalised industries. I have always taken the view that these large sums in deficit on State boards, supported by unlimited borrowing powers, are a burden on the taxpayer. The Parliamentary Secretary outdoes the Socialists themselves by the glib and specious reply that it is not taxpayers' money. He says that it comes from the Consolidated Fund. Pray, who furnishes the Consolidated Fund?

Mr. J. Griffiths: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but—

Mr. Nabarro: Will the right hon. Gentleman please let me finish this passage? I will give way. At least, I am purer in my Tory beliefs than the Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. Taylor: Purer?

Mr. Nabarro: I said purer—purer in my Tory beliefs than the Parliamentary Secretary, who is more Socialist than the Socialist Front Bench itself.

Mr. Griffiths: I was trying to charge my memory, and, so far as I recall, the hon. Member for Kidderminster was not in his place yesterday when the Government were proposing to give public money, taxpayers' money, to the private aircraft industry.

Mr. Nabarro: I cannot go into that.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): We cannot discuss that on the Third Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Nabarro: I entirely agree with that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. You will have observed my purity in Parliamentary procedure in that I have not even mentioned the aircraft industry in my speech.
May I reply, not in terms of the aircraft industry, to the point of principle


which the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has raised? On Thursday, we shall debate iron and steel. I shall express my view about subventions by the State to private industry on that occasion, which is the proper time to do it. My Tory faith will outshine even the demonstration of Tory faith and beliefs which I am giving today.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That has very little to do with this Bill.

Mr. Nabarro: I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, on this occasion. I have been misled.
The second cleavage of opinion between my right hon. Friend and myself concerns the extent of stocks.

Mr. Finch: rose—

Mr. Nabarro: Very well. In weariness, I give way.

Mr. Finch: I do not understand the hon Member at all. He has supported the policy of having stocks and more stocks time after time in speeches he has made in the House of Commons. I have quoted one of his speeches, and I will quote another. On 14th July, 1958, he said:
In view of this new political crisis in the Middle East, we would be ill advised to place increasing dependence on fuel oil. Rather would I have a policy here at home of continuing to mine the maximum tonnage of coal, even if it means storing increasing quantities,"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th July, 1958; Vol. 591, c. 910.]

Mr. Nabarro: I shall deal with all these points in the course of my speech. I am at the moment addressing myself to my right hon. Friend. I have given two fundamental cleavages of opinion between us.
I come now to the third fundamental cleavage of opinion. My right hon. Friend believes that the rate of deterioration and degradation of these huge stocks of coal is 1 per cent. per annum. Yet 16 million tons of these stocks are represented by unscreened, unwashed, low grade coals with a high ash content. I believe that it is manifest nonsense to say that coals of that type and nature deteriorate by only 1 per cent. per annum.

Mr. Woodrow Wyatt: rose—

Mr. Nabarro: I do ask hon. Members to let me finish.
None of us can be absolutely sure about the rate of deterioration, but what I am quite convinced about—here lies the third major cleavage of opinion between my right hon. Friend and myself—is that the Coal Board is "cooking the books" by writing into its accounts—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, "cooking the books", I said, in writing into its accounts the sum of £141 million—

Mr. J. Griffiths: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. A deliberate charge has been made by the hon. Member for Kidderminster against the Coal Board, for which the Minister is responsible. He says that the Board is cooking its books. Since the Minister is, under the Act, responsible for the industry, may I ask whether he will now rise, as I think it is his duty, and say that, as Minister responsible, he refutes that gross charge?

Mr. Wood: I should like to take the opportunity of pointing out to my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) that he is not only making accusations against the National Coal Board, but he is making accusations of a very serious character indeed against its accountants and auditors.

Mr. B. Taylor: Will the hon. Member for Kidderminster make outside the House the statement that he has just made?

Mr. Nabarro: Surely, there cannot be any point of order in this matter, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I used those words to Mr. Speaker on 8th February last. I said to my right hon. Friend—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I have not suggested that there was a point of order in it.

Mr. Nabarro: Thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for your protection.

Mr. Wyatt: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is it not very much against the traditions of the House to make accusations of that kind against accountants and auditors who are quite unable to defend themselves, quite apart from accusations against the Minister and the Coal Board?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is not out of order. The responsibility rests with the hon. Member who makes them.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Is it not in accordance with the traditions of the House that, if an hon. Member makes a charge which reflects upon the honour of persons who are not here to defend themselves, for example, auditors, he ought to make the statement outside so that the people so charged can have their own remedy, which is not open to them so long as such statements are made within the House?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is a matter for the hon. Member.

Mr. Nabarro: I am conscious of the heavy responsibilities which rest upon my shoulders, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
Referring to the accountancy practice of the Board's accountants, I said to my right hon. Friend on 8th February—he did not deign to reply—that
… the best accountancy practice requires that these stocks shall be put into the accounts at cost or market value, whichever is the lower. Will my right hon. Friend be precise on that point as more than £140 million is involved?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February, 1960; Vol. 617, c. 13.]
Cost or market value, whichever is the lower, is the accepted formula throughout industry, commerce and the accountancy profession in this country for the evaluation of stocks. I believe that the cost of these stocks is higher and the market value is certainly much lower than the figures which the Board has written into its accounts. For this reason, I believe—

Mr. Griffiths: That is different from "cooking the books".

Mr. Nabarro: The Board is seeking to minimise its loss forward and when the true evaluation of these stocks is taken, that is, when they are sold—if ever—and when they have to be sold at a greatly written down figure, if ever, then the losses forward will be greatly increased. I give way now to the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Wyatt).

Mr. Wyatt: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he does not believe the figures given by the Minister this afternoon, based on the expert and scientific advice which he has received on the rate of deterioration of stocks, because it can only be on that basis that the hon.

Gentleman is saying that the stocks are valued wrongly in the accounts? Will the hon. Gentleman look at the Iron and Coal Trades Review of 14th November, 1958, where he will find the whole of these investigations set out very carefully, calculated by the best experts in the land?

Mr. Nabarro: I will consult the document to which the hon. Gentleman refers after I have finished my speech. I do not carry it around with me in my waistcoat pocket.
I am sorry that this afternoon the hon. Gentleman was trying to foist on the Royal Family at Windsor Castle a deluge of "nutty slack". Poor souls, why should they suffer!

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: This has nothing to do with the Third Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Nabarro: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I shall relate it in a moment to the Third Reading.
My right hon. Friend referred to the stocks of coal and to minimising those stocks. The hon. Gentleman's question this afternoon was directed to keeping Windsor Castle on coal burning.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That has nothing to do with the Bill.

Mr. Nabarro: I will not pursue the point about Windsor Castle.
I have mentioned the three main cleavages of opinion between my right hon. Friend and myself. There is a ministerial hypothesis in this regard and also a hypothesis expounded by the hon. Member for Kidderminster. I believe that, in the event, my hypothesis will be more accurate than the ministerial hypothesis. I believe, therefore, that the losses of the Coal Board will increase during 1960, for the reasons I have stated. That will undermine the probity of the Bill before the House today and it will cause my right hon. Friend to come back to the House for additional borrowing powers at a substantially earlier date than he envisaged in his Second Reading speech.
My right hon. Friend's predecessors at the Ministry of Fuel and Power, in Conservative Administrations, were invariably obliged to come to the House for more and more borrowing powers at earlier and earlier dates than they estimated.
I shall not oppose the Bill in the Division Lobby.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Why not?

Mr. Nabarro: Why not? I will tell the hon. Gentleman why not. I do not suppose that he was present during the debate on 27th January, 1960—

Mr. Silverman: Why does the hon. Gentleman suppose that?

Mr. Nabarro: —to vote on that date. And he did not vote.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. May I remind the hon. Member that this is the Third Reading debate?

Mr. Nabarro: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
I was saying when I was interrupted that I shall not vote against the Third Reading of the Bill because a part of the increased borrowing powers is necessary to the Coal Board. I sought in Committee to reduce the extent of the additional borrowing powers. I was defeated in the Lobby on that count, but that does not make me any the less right, and I counsel my Conservative colleagues—I would not expect acceptance of this view by Socialists—to note the marked analogy between the two nationalised industries to which I have referred and the words written in The Times by my right hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. P. Thorneycroft) on 15th February, with all the authority of an ex Chancellor of the Exchequer, [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Oh, yes. I am a faithful disciple of his. My right hon. Friend said:
Wage fixing without regard to profitability is the method applied in the Civil Service. If it is to be applied to railways it might be applied to coal mines, also.
That is the danger with deficit financing for State boards—endless borrowing without profitability. That is the policy of my right hon. Friend and the Parliamentary Secretary, endless borrowing—

Mr. Silverman: rose—

Mr. Nabarro: —without profitability. And hanging over my right hon. Friend's head—I hope that he will look this way—is the £75 million pay claim of the National Union of Mineworkers. It goes to arbitration. If it is conceded wholly or in part it cannot be met by advancing

or increasing the price of coal, because if the price of coal in increased further it will lead to a diminution of demand and to the greater use of oil. If the miners wage claim is conceded on arbitration it would increase the losses of the Coal Board further, and it will cause my right hon. Friend to come back to the House even earlier to seek a renewal of increased borrowing powers.
My right hon. Friend would not respond to that point which I made on Second Reading of the Bill. He took the view, haughtily, that these matters were none of his concern. They are the concern of all taxpayers, because it is the taxpayers who are having to underwrite the huge sums of money in the Bill. As I have said, I shall not vote against the Bill. [Laughter.] It is all very well for the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) to sneer, but I voted with 12 of my hon. Friends in Committee against the Government on the extent of the borrowing powers. I took 26 hon. Members on this side of the House into the Lobby against the Government on the same issue on 10th May, 1956.
The Board needs some extra borrowing powers, but it does not need borrowing powers to the great extent to which my right hon. Friend is demanding in the Bill.

Mr. Silverman: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's statement that he does not propose to vote against the Bill. No one doubts his courage; he has, as he has said, frequently voted with a minority against his own side. I would further concede to him that many of us have voted for things with which we do not entirely agree because something is there with which we cannot dispense. But the hon. Gentleman has used strange language. He has talked about "cooking the books". That means a fraudulent prospectus. If the Bill proposes to borrow money on a fraudulent prospectus, ought not the hon. Gentleman to vote against it?

Mr. Nabarro: The trouble is that the whole of nationalisation is a fraudulent prospectus. It is a source of great grief to me that hon. Members who sit on this side of the House, and who masquerade as Conservative Members of Parliament, such as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry


of Power, should support such a fraudulent prospectus as that contained in the Bill which we are discussing today.

5.29 p.m.

Mr. James Boyden: I was very pleased to find the Minister supporting nationalisation in this Measure, but I was disappointed that he did not mention some of the achievements of the National Coal Board in making itself more efficient, thus demonstrating the exact opposite to what the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has been saying. The Board has achieved a very fine record in the last year or two in increasing its efficiency, and this money is to be devoted precisely to that.
If one looks, for example, at improvements made in power loading, one finds that in 1947 only 2 per cent. of coal was power-loaded whereas in 1959 it was 32 per cent. Again, if one looks at mechanical cleaning plants, one finds that in 1958 22 new plants were brought into operation with a capacity of 12 million tons. At the moment, 63 new plants are in the process of being constructed to deal with a further 48 million tons. This money is being devoted to improving the efficiency of the coal industry. One of the weaknesses of the Conservative Party's economic policy for the last two or three years has been that not enough capital has been devoted to increased capital investment or increased efficiency. Here we have a nationalised industry which has set an example in increased productivity, investment and efficiency.
If we take some standard techniques of mining, shaft sinking for example, we find shaft sinking techniques have become faster, safer and leading to greater capacity. Nine new shafts have been sunk during 1958, more than in any other year since vesting day, and 20 new shafts are in process of being sunk. Tunnelling has become more efficient. In that respect, too, 1958 was a record year for length of tunnelling leading to more efficient methods and faster and cheaper production.
The proving of reserves has taken on a new aspect. Off-shore boring towers have provided additional information. The one in Scotland has added considerably to the knowledge and ultimate

efficiency of the Scottish coalfield. There is, at the moment, one operating off the Durham coast which has been doing precisely the same for the East Durham coalfield. Six new coke ovens were operating by the end of 1958 at a cost of about £48 million. This has borne hardly on the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Durham, North-West (Mr. Ainsley) and Durham (Mr. Grey). Men are being sacked as a result of improvements in efficiency, but the National Union of Mineworkers has not been protesting about that. It accepts, particularly in Durham, the efforts of the Board to improve efficiency.
In addition, the Coal Board has been reducing its overhead costs. There has been a reduction in the holding stocks of materials of £6 million in 1958 and there have been improved methods of stock control. Five new central stores were brought into operation in 1958, and now there are 28. There have been central purchasing economies. Standard procedures were introduced for letting constructional and engineering contracts in 1959. There have been electronic data processing machines for pay bills and so on. We have one in Durham. All these are signs of a great increase in efficiency and productivity on the part of the Coal Board partly based on these loans.
One of the striking facts which has emerged in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) was the fall in production costs of 1s. 9d. a ton in 1959. This is quite remarkable when set against the biggest fall in the demand for coal since 1932. With this fall in demand there have been the biggest increases in productivity because the Board has been playing the game by the nation. At the same time the workers have not suffered. If one recalls the slumps and crises of pre-war days, it will be remembered that the first people who bore the brunt were the miners. Fortunately, in 1958 and 1959 conditions for miners improved. The pay award of September, 1958, gave £10 million in 1959 to the miners and this well-deserved pay award was based on increased productivity.
In September, 1958, there were improvements in miners' sickness benefit amounting to 30s. a week for 30 days' sickness absence and 15s. a week for a


further 30 days absence at a cost of £2 million a year, which was borne out of increasing productivity. Widows' benefits were increased by one-third to £200, and who would argue against that? I do not think that the most reactionary of Tories would criticise that benefit. The Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation spent £1 million in benefits throughout the industry, and several of my former students have benefited enormously from schemes supported by this organisation. Now 95 per cent. of the industry is provided with pithead baths, which has helped to improve the self-respect and general demeanour of the coal miners. In 1958 one-third of a million pounds was spent on canteens.
It is all very well to look at the question of profit in terms of a balance-sheet and judge it from the point of view of private enterprise. But one of the public obligations of the Board is to raise the standard of conditions for the miners in addition to increasing productivity. It has done that, and I hope it will continue to do so.

Mr. B. Taylor: I am sure my hon. Fiend would agree that quite as important as the provision of pithead baths and canteens is the provision of medical centres at quite a number of collieries during the past few years.

Mr. Boyden: I am grateful for that intervention. In my notes I have spelt out "pneumoconiosis" so that I should be quite sure to pronounce it properly, though I am familiar with the disease. There has been a great improvement. In 1958, there were 2,902 cases compared with 3,756 in 1957 and 4,853 in 1956. I think that is conclusive proof of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. B. Taylor).
There has also been an improvement in industrial relations. There were fewer stoppages in 1959. When one recalls that in those black days, the five years before the war, 44 per cent. to 68 per cent. of the industrial stoppages were in the coalfields, one can appreciate the considerable improvement which has taken place, not only in productivity and social conditions, but also in industrial relations within the industry. All these things have been accomplished with considerable difficulty not only over the stocking of coal but also what the economist might call frictional disturbances outside the control of the Board.
For example, during the last quarter of 1959 450,000 tons of coal had to be stocked because of a shortage of railway wagons and in the same quarter 60,000 tons of production were lost for the same reason. In January of this year 360,000 tons of coal could not be delivered to the consumers who required it because of the shortage of railway wagons. In the first week of this month 120,000 tons could not be delivered. That makes a total of almost 1 million tons of coal required by consumers which it was not possible to deliver because of the shortage of railway rolling stock. If ever there was a matter requiring Government intervention and remedies, both immediate and long-term, it is the question of co-ordinating transport and the policies of British Railways.
I think it fair to say that the blame for the fact that nearly 1 million tons of coal has not been delivered to consumers in the last few months lies fairly and squarely on the Government. I understand that the situation in the Midlands is that the National Coal Board has been negotiating with the British Transport Commission to deliver 50,000 tons of coal a week by road.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I find it difficult to relate what he is saying to the Third Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Boyden: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I will return to the vital point. I was trying to stress that these difficulties are within the control of the Government and this investment will enable the Coal Board to become still more efficient.
Great play has been made with the argument that the public is bearing some of these costs, but in fact the miners are bearing the cost. It is a tribute to nationalisation that a blow which in the past would have been dealt against the miners has been cushioned by stocking.
Nevertheless, the miner still bears the cost. Old men who want to work are unable to work. Young men are transferred and, while they are provided with a job, they often have to work at lower wages and in a strange environment. There is loss of pay, loss of Saturday working and loss of overtime. There is considerable inconvenience to them in travelling, and many of them have to


migrate. What is worse, the prospects for their sons and the prospects for those who are sick or only partially fit are particularly poor in the coal-mining areas.
It therefore ill behoves some hon. Members opposite to criticise the measures which are being taken by the Government, because the Coal Board, the mining industry and the men in the industry have risen very well to the demand for increased productivity and increased efficiency in the last few years. This is the smallest measure which can be taken to help them to continue the viability of the industry and the maintenance of this reserve of energy in the country which in the last few years has rescued us from industrial crises of shortages.

5.41 p.m.

Colonel C. G. Lancaster: Nobody would quarrel with the speeches of the hon. Members for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) and Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden), in which they have drawn attention to the definite improvement which is occurring in the coal industry as a result of the very large infusion of money over the last ten or fifteen years. This is beginning to show results. It is because we are satisfied that this improvement is occurring and because we want it to continue that hon. Members in all parts of the House will give the Bill a Third Reading.
We are, however, concerned and worried about the stocks, and if I dwell for a few minutes on this subject it is because I want to give a slightly different slant to it from that which my right hon. Friend gave when he was making his very clear explanation of the situation as he saw it.
The coal winter is a period of five months extending from 31st October to the end of March. During those five months it is normal to have a run-down of stocks. During the remaining seven months of the year it is normal for the stocks to increase. What is causing me some concern is that the run-down of stocks from 31st October to date has been about 5 million tons.
I think that perhaps a little confusion has arisen between distributed and undistributed stocks in that respect, because when there are large undistributed stocks it is quite normal for the distributed

stocks to be somewhat lower than usual. In the old days, it was normal to have distributed stocks of 19 million to 23 million tons. This year we started with about 16 million tons. This was because both merchants and industry realised that there was available at a moment's notice in undistributed stocks all the additional coal they might want. We have to look at the whole picture.
During the four months which have elapsed since 31st October about 5 million tons has been raised from stocks. If we continue at roughly the same rate, then by the end of the coal winter about 6 million or 6½ million tons will have been raised from stocks, both distributed and undistributed.
We then have to face seven months during which it is normal for stocks to start rising again. Whereas in the old days there was some flexibility between winter production and summer production, there is now none at all. We have the guaranteed week and the guaranteed wage. The days of the bull weeks and Saturday working are over. We must therefore assume that production during the subsequent seven months will be on the same level as has been occurring during the five months to which I have referred.
There will be the gradual effect of pits going out of production which have been earmarked to end their days, but against that there is the additional productivity which is occurring in the industry day by day. That is not a constant. It is bound to be on a rising scale. If a great mass of machinery is introduced, as has been done, and if all the improvements which have been mentioned this afternoon are occurring, and continue to occur, then the ratio of productivity will continue to rise. Where I find myself a little at variance with my right hon. Friend is that I am not as sanguine as he is that there will be no rise in stocks. I do not join my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) in the level which he thought likely, but I am inclined to think that there is bound to be some rise in 1960.
What are the possibilities before the National Coal Board in that respect? If productivity continues to rise, as I think it will, the Board will have three possibilities before it. First, it can work short time, but, as I said a few weeks


ago, that would make the Board's new recruiting campaign a hopeless proposition. I assume that the Board would not do that. Secondly, it can say to management, "Go easy" That is a very difficult thing to do. Once an industry is tooled up, to ask management not to work at the maximum production within the limits which have been ascribed to it is excessively difficult, because it affects the morale of management and in due course the morale of he men. I do not think that that is a practical proposition. The third possibility is to close down more pits. We want to see that avoided at any cost until the right moment arrives.
If none of these three methods is applied, there is no alternative to seeing some additional stocking take place. I read today in one of the trade journals that one of the Coal Board's divisions has made arrangements to take an additional 170 acres of land for additional stocking. I do not believe that that sort of thing happens unless it is envisaged that some stocking will occur. I ask hon. Members in all parts of the House to consider for a moment how much land is represnted by 170 acres. It is a very large area. If it is envisaged in one division that it is necessary to take so much additional land for stocking, there must be some doubts within the industry of the likelihood of the diminution in stocks by 1 million tons in 1960 to which reference has been made. I hope that I shall be found wrong, but I should certainly be wrong if I did not utter my warning of the possibility of a rise in stocks during the ensuing year, in the light of what I have said.
May I say a word about the condition of these stocks? When the findings of the Minister's Scientific Committee declare that it is satisfied that the effect of deterioration is only about 1 per cent., it is difficult for anyone to say that the Committee is giving us incorrect information, but I ask hon. Members opposite, in particular, who are familiar with the properties of coal, to recognise that in many of our best seams—the top hard, the Barnsley Bed and many of our coking coals—there is an element of pyrites which creates a risk of oxidisation, and that that has a bearing on the condition of these stocks unless in all these cases they are very carefully watched. In any event, that would be

a small matter. As has been said, the important aspect of stocking is the condition of these untreated smalls, of both types, the unscreened and the untreated, amounting to about 16 or 17 million tons.
During the Select Committee's inquiry into the coal industry a year ago, we tried to get a satisfactory answer concerning the ash content of the coal then being mined, but we never got any satisfaction in that regard. I am inclined to think that the ash content has gone up considerably over the last few years. That is no reflection on the Coal Board which has introduced methods which in their very nature increase the ash content. Apart from that, however, we are mining a great many seams which, possibly, are not of the same quality as those mined twenty or thirty years ago.
Generally speaking, these untreated smalls have a large ash content. I do not say that that in itself brings about deterioration. What I am saying is that the coal, apart from what is taken by power stations, is not an acceptable commodity to the great mass of industrial consumers. It will inevitably have to be taken and treated before it is a saleable article. The double handling required for that purpose in putting it through the preparation plants and the like is a costly affair.
What we must also remember is that quite a proportion of this coal has inevitably been dumped at positions outside the normal channel of its use. It will have to be lifted and brought back, in many cases by road haulage, into the areas where it is to be sold, and in a great majority of cases it must be retreated also.
I find it difficult to believe that within the orbit of 4s., which is the figure that is applied after the first two years to our stocks of coal, it will be practicable both to bring that coal back into its proper channels and to retreat with the double handling which is thereby involved. I find it difficult to believe that all this can be done within the orbit of the 4s.
Although it is difficult to ignore the advice on which my right hon. Friend, quite properly, is basing his opinion of a very low figure for actual deterioration, nevertheless the incidence of what I have mentioned—the factor of pyrites in one direction and the high ash content in


another direction—is such that the requirement to put the article on to the market in an acceptable condition will be expensive.
Those are the two points I wanted to make. I have made them not so much to try to suggest that I am necessarily right in my forecast, but to sound a note of warning to my right hon. Friend, who is faced in these matters with a difficult situation. Inevitably, he has to accept the advice of those who, in many ways, are best able to give it. Nevertheless, we should be wrong to ignore all past experience in these matters. Stocking took place in the years before nationalisation and we had experience of what it cost in the long run. Often, anything over six months turned out to be a costly affair, not only in degradation, but in the condition in which stocks were lifted and in the necessary additional double handling that was needed for the coal. There is quite a wealth of experience, which, on the whole, is somewhat disturbed by the forecasts which are being made. Here again, I hope I shall be proved wrong, but, equally, I should be wrong in not giving this note of warning to my right hon. Friend. I know that he will give the matter careful attention.
Having said that, I want to get back to the fact that I, like, I think, almost everybody in the House, am anxious to see that my right hon. Friend has the money to go forward with the good work which is being done by way of reconstruction, development and the like, which not only will put the mines into first-class order, but will give them a fair chance of competing with other forms of fuel.

5.56 p.m.

Mr. Woodrow Wyatt: One always listens with interest to the hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster), because one knows that not only has he had great experience in these matters but that he really cares about what happens. When he makes suggestions to the Minister I am sure that he makes them with the most sincere intention.
I am not quite so sure that that applies to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), whose convolutions are so extraordinary that it is always difficult to follow them or to fathom which way

he is going. This afternoon the hon. Member reached a new low in his juggling when he attacked the Coal Board and its auditors for dishonesty. That was not the right thing to do, and the hon. Member did it, I think, on a misapprehension of his facts.
The last time that we had one of these debates, to take a leaf from the hon. Member's book, I had to correct his figures, which were wrong and out of date. He had not read the corrections. The Minister confirmed that I was right and that the hon. Member was wrong.

Mr. Nabarro: Nothing of the sort.

Mr. Wyatt: The hon. Member is not, therefore, the infallible oracle that he sometimes makes himself out to be. If only he would look at the Iron and Coal Trades Review of 14th November, 1958, he would find set out in the utmost detail the calculations on which the Minister has partly based his statement this afternoon that the deterioration in the stocks is somewhere beween 15 per cent. and 1 per cent. a year for most of the coal, whereas for coal of less than one-twentieth of an inch it may be as much as 3 per cent. in a year. As, however, that type of coal is less than 5 per cent. of all the current stocks this does not very much affect the issue.
That survey lasted for five years. It was carried out by experts of considerable standing, some of them from private enterprise, which may console the hon. Member for Kidderminster. It was thoroughly exhaustive. As nobody has yet disproved the proposition on which it was based, there is no reason to suppose that it was wrongly based.
It is wrong, therefore, to accuse the Coal Board and its auditors of dishonesty when they value the stocks in the Board's books on the basis of that sort of figure. They have made more allowance for deterioration, I think, than they would be entitled to do on the basis of those surveys in the report.
The hon. Member for Kidderminster ought, in decency, to withdraw his accusation. He is not infallible. He is very funny when he gets up, waves his arms and juggles with papers. He makes many amusing remarks, but it is not very funny when he makes an accusation of dishonesty against people who


are trying to do their job properly, particularly when it cannot he substantiated. In fact, if the hon. Member is right the Minister this afternoon has been dishonest, and I do not believe that. I do not believe that his advisers, either from the Coal Board or from the Ministry of Power, are engaged in trying to "cook the books", which is what the hon. Member for Kidderminster has said. He ought to withdraw this accusation, and I will give him the chance to do so.

Mr. Nabarro: That is kind and generous of the hon. Member. I do not propose to withdraw anything. What I said was that the National Coal Board had not followed the widely accepted accountancy practice—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—of evaluating its stocks on the basis of cost or market value, whichever is the lower. If the Board has not done that, it results in a cooking of the books.

Mr. Wyatt: The hon. Member is wrong again, because the Board has done that. It has included handling and deterioration in the stocks in assessing value. Does the hon. Member ever inquire from the Coal Board about these matters, or is all this a figment of his imagination and little bits of gossip picked up in the bar or from local newspapers?

Mr. J. Griffiths: The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has his adviser by him on the benches opposite, the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport).

Mr. Nabarro: I willingly answer the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Wyatt). What is the market value of unsaleable coal? A lot of this coal will never be sold. It is unwashed, unscreened and unsaleable. Therefore, its market value is nil, and it is wholly wrong and misleading to the taxpayers to put it in the books at £3 6s. a ton, as has been suggested.

Mr. Wyatt: The hon. Member makes the wildest accusations that a considerable amount of this coal is unscreened and unwashed. It is perfectly saleable. He never listens when he is answered. No wonder he never faces the true facts on "Panorama." I think that an investigation by the hon. Member would be a very wild affair.
The Coal Board is now aware of the enormous danger that faces it. It is trying as hard as it can to modernise its systems of sale and research and so on. I hope that it will use this money to further competition with oil. I listened to the hon. Member for Kidderminster and others saying that a nationalised industry should be run on a commercial basis. It is interesting to note the split in the party opposite on the issue of nationalisation.
Hon. and right hon. Members opposite have had more experience of nationalisation than any other party. They have been running the nationalised industries for the last ten years, and if there is anything wrong with those industries it is entirely due to the failure of the party opposite to put them right. I can see the quarrel in the Conservative Party about nationalisation becoming a very serious and fundamental one, of which, no doubt, we shall hear a great deal more in the future.
The hon. Member for Kidderminster may be right. He wants the coal industry to be run as a commercial institution. I do not think that that was done sufficiently in the past when there was an easy market for coal. I hope that the Coal Board will use some of this money to counter the insidious propaganda on the part of the oil companies which seem to have found their way into the ears of advisers at the Ministry of Power. When the Clean Air Act was passed, owing to the inadequacy of propaganda and of the funds available to the Coal Board, automatic exemption was given under that Act to appliances burning oil, even when that oil was Middle East oil which has a 3 per cent. sulphur content—and 70 per cent. of oil burned in this country comes from the Middle East.
The oil contains twice as high a proportion of sulphur as is contained in coal. When it is remembered that when coal is burned a good deal of the sulphur is left in the ash, it can be clearly seen that oil from the Middle East is far more dangerous to the health of the population than is coal, yet because the Coal Board did not have the funds to engage in the propaganda which the oil companies were able to carry out, this extraordinary provision was put in the Act giving exemption automatically to oil-burning appliances.
The Minister was not sufficiently well briefed the other day on this matter. Perhaps the Coal Board could not afford to send him leaflets to explain it, but the money provided under the Bill will now allow the Board to do much more propaganda on this subject. The right hon. Gentleman told us that it is impossible to have legislation to apply to oil-burning appliances which discharge great quantities of sulphur into the air. This is not true. There is legislation in Los Angeles which prohibits during the winter months the burning of oil containing ½ per cent. of sulphur. That legislation was passed in Los Angeles to save lives. Owing to the Coal Board not having resources to do its own propaganda, not only have the Government allowed the coal industry to be partly throttled but they have done that at the expense of the safety of the lives of the population in allowing installations to burn this sulphur-bearing oil.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I find some difficulty in connecting this with Third Reading.

Mr. Wyatt: The point is that if the Board had been able to borrow more money it might have been able to counteract the insidious effect of the propaganda put out by the oil companies and might have been able to afford to print leaflets which might have reached the Minister's desk.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is far from the Third Reading, and I hope that the hon. Member will not pursue it too long.

Mr. Wyatt: I think that I have made that point clear.
There is a great project on foot on which, I hope, some of the money provided under the Bill can be spent. It is the creation of a high pressure gas grid system from Manchester to London. That is not entirely the responsibility of the Coal Board, but research into this project could well be part of its responsibility. It is certainly the Board's responsibility to see that it sells coal for use in such a system, and 70 per cent. of the low-grade coal of the country lies on the line of the proposed grid. It is the type of coal required for gasification to work a high-pressure gas grid system. It

is also the fact that 70 per cent. of the gas used in the country today is used by consumers on the same line.
It is very bad that the Government have not done far more about this already and have not done more to help the Board to do something about it, because the ideal way of using coal is in the production of gas. It is much the cheaper way of using coal for heating purposes, for domestic cooking and for industrial use by small firms. If only some of the money provided under the Bill were spent on this project one could have such a scheme working within three years. A scheme of this kind is working already in America.

Sir William Robson Brown: The hon. Member is doing scant justice to the Gas Council which for a number of years has been making the closest investigation into the very matter about which the hon. Member is talking. It has a glorious record, and I pay high tribute to the Council. It has nothing to learn from America or anywhere else.

Mr. Wyatt: I admire the hon. Member's patriotism, but I do not follow his logic. The Council has been dithering about this for years. The best scheme was propounded by Mr. Burns of the North Thames Gas Board, but nothing has been done about it, although the scheme has been available for development for four or five years. The Coal Board should now spend a great deal of money on this. It should also subscribe money to the institution at Leatherhead where research is being carried out into the gasification of coal.
Another matter on which the Board should spend money is that of alerting the country to the appalling dangers inherent in the rising imports of fuel. The Minister should understand this. I put a Question to him not long ago and asked what the annual increase in production in United Kingdom refineries had been since 1953 and what had been the annual increase of inland consumption of fuel oil in the same period. The Answer was that whereas production had gone up by only 5 million tons, the inland consumption had gone up by 10 million tons. There is no way round this, however much the Minister argues about it. Fuel oil is being imported at the rate of 5 million tons in excess of United Kingdom refinery production


and this at a time when the coal industry is suffering severely. I want the Coal Board to be able to spend a little more money explaining the facts—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: This is very ingenious, but the hon. Member is not keeping within the rules on Third Reading.

Mr. Wyatt: I will try again, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, as I have one or two other points that I want to make.
Another thing which I think needs to be done by the Minister of Power, with the aid of the Coal Board, is to provide quickly some sort of co-ordination between Government Departments in order to see that any proposal which suggests a conversion from coke or coal to oil is notified at once to the Minister of Power so that he can do something about it. We had an instance this afternoon about Windsor Castle, where the Ministry of Power and the National Coal Board knew nothing whatever about the proposed conversion until it was too late to do anything about it. Mere we have—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That does not come within the scope of this debate.

Mr. Wyatt: I respectfully suggest that if the National Coal Board got more money it would be able to set up a bigger staff in order to keep in touch with all these developments going on in Government Departments about converting heating appliances from coke and coal to oil. It is up to the Minister to see that he gets the best advice on how to find out about these things, and if that can be done a great deal of loss to the Coal Board will be saved. If the conversion of Government-owned installations goes on at the present rate it is quite true that the estimates of coal production by the National Coal Board may not be reached. The Government themselves are making it impossible for the Board to fulfil its own estimates of coal production by allowing Government Departments to change over from coke and coal to oil. I think that the Minister has got the point, and I hope that something will be done about it.
I do not wish to say anything more, except that the Minister may have been referring to me when he said that some of us on this side of the House thought

that the Government did not want to make nationalisation work. I think that is true of the Government as a whole. It is obviously logical, from the Conservative Party's point of view, to keep every nationalised industry ticking over, producing to the bare minimum needed by the country, thus making nationalisation unpopular in the country and saying that it is all the Labour Party's fault. How they get away with it I do not know, because they have been running the nationalised industries for ten years and we ran them for only three years.
I would except both the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary from this charge, because I know that their conduct in debate and at Question Time over the last few months has shown their great anxiety to help the coal industry, the miners and the Coal Board. Those of us on this side of the House who take an interest in this subject will back them up all we can in their efforts to make a success of the National Coal Board and the coal mining industry.

6.13 p.m.

Mr. Raymond Gower: I listened to the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Wyatt) with considerable interest, but I thought that his last suggestion, that the Government have sought not to establish the success of the nationalised industries, was less than worthy of him. I should have thought that there is evidence which could disprove that assertion on his part. It is notable that some of the nationalised industries have been considerably more successful than others.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but this is the Third Reading of the Coal Industry Bill.

Mr. Gower: I was replying to a point made by a previous speaker, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I will certainly leave it now and proceed with what I sought to say about the Bill.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will appreciate that, on these benches, as well as on the benches opposite, and outside this House, there is a general recognition of the extraordinarily difficult task with which he is confronted, as well as the tremendous task with which the Coal Board is faced. I think that my right hon. Friend will


also appreciate that there is on these benches, as well as elsewhere, a realisation that the increased borrowing powers provided for in the Bill should be granted. Nevertheless, it is true to say that, while my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) spoke in extremely exaggerated terms, there was a germ of truth in some of his observations which reflect some apprehensions in the country.
The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch), in opening this debate for the Opposition, said that this money will enable the Coal Board to carry out at least three tasks, namely, to fulfil its "Revised Plan for Coal", to increase its efficiency, and to enable it to compete with oil. I am not quite sure whether this revised plan will be the final word or not. It is possible, indeed probable, that this plan may have to be revised again. I fear that we are by no means near the end of the road, and that the Bill may be an interim Measure rather than the final one which we shall have to discuss on this and similar subjects.
I agree with the hon. Member that this money will enable the Coal Board to increase its efficiency. It has done so already, and, like my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster), I agree with hon. Members opposite who have given examples of how that efficiency has been increased. I would only observe, in passing, that it would be very strange if any industry were not more efficient today than twenty or thirty years ago. This is something which is happening in practically every industry.
The Board is, then, increasing its efficiency. If we are to advance this large sum of money we must be concerned to know whether that efficiency is increasing quickly enough, because the task of, and the challenge to, this industry is very great. While we welcome every evidence of increased efficiency, it is absolutely essential that both my right hon. Friend and the Board should not tire of well-doing in this field. Efficiency here is synonymous with continued existence and with meeting this tremendous challenge.
The third point is how it is to compete with oil, and here I would be out of order if I developed this point unduly.

Mr. Boyden: rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the hon. Member who is speaking does not give way, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) must resume his seat.

Mr. Gower: I did not know that any hon. Member was on his feet, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I willingly give way.

Mr. Boyden: Would not the hon. Gentleman regard the saving in cost of 1s. 9d. a ton in one year as a successful achievement?

Mr. Gower: Yes, I said I appreciated, like many of my hon. Friends, the marked increase in efficiency. I merely wish to emphasise that the tremendous challenge which faces the industry is of such dimensions that we may have to look for even greater efficiency, because it has to meet the challenge of what may possibly be a more efficient and more suitable fuel for the needs of the modern world. This is not only happening in Britain, but in practically every highly industrialised country. It is not an isolated phenomenon, but something we are seeing all the world over. For that reason, we cannot fail to stress its importance.
There has been an increase in output. That, again, is also essential, but on this side of the House the anxieties expressed in exaggerated terms by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster are not confined to him. There are anxieties about the growth in stocks. It would be unreasonable if there were not. We want as soon as possible to see some prospect not merely of not increasing the stocks, but also that the deterioration in them will not be greater than my right hon. Friend believes. I do not think for a moment that there has been any dishonesty or misrepresentation here, but, on the other hand, there may be some over-optimism about the amount of deterioration, and that would be just as dangerous as the broad assertion which has been made.
Having made those points in a relatively abridged form, to enable other hon. Members to speak, may I add that I am sure that my right hon. Friend has the support and good wishes of all hon. Members in the extraordinary task which he and the National Coal Board have to face.

6.19 p.m.

Mr. Bernard Taylor: I do not want to interfere with the expedition or business at this hour, but I do want to say that I support the Bill, because since vesting day the National Coal Board has done a good job from every point of view, sometimes under great difficulties.
I should not have ventured to intervene if it had not been for some of the remarks made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), not only in this debate but in previous ones. It mystifies me whether the hon. Gentleman is an expert on coal, carpets or camouflage. After his remarks today, I have come to the conclusion that perhaps he is most expert in the last named. I thought that his remarks about the Minister, who fortunately, is able to defend himself, were wide of the mark.
On the question of the efficiency of the industry since vesting day in 1947, when output per man-shift was 21·5 cwt., in 1958, the last year for which we have had the figures, it has risen by 25 per cent. to 25·6 per cent. This is the justification for the great amount of money invested in the coal industry since vesting day. I believe that the overall figure spent by the Coal Board on improving efficiency with a view to increasing productivity has been no less than £760 million.
I was interested in the point made by the hon. Member for Kidderminster about the losses made by the Board. During the last few days I have looked up some figures, one or two of which are illuminating. Since vesting day there has been an operating profit of no less than £185 million and in the light of that operating profit I draw the attention of the House to some of the burdens carried by the Board. It may be that in the not-too-distant future we shall have to consider these with a view to easing some of those burdens.
Since vesting day there has been paid by way of interest to the Government, through the Minister of Power, £221 million. I was alarmed yesterday at some information I received in reply to Questions regarding the liability which the Coal Board is carrying in respect of compensation to the old royalty owners. I learned from the figures given to me by the Minister yesterday that there has been paid £12 million, reducing the capital liability from £78 million to £66

million. Then there is the increasing cost of subsidence, the loss of imported coal and the question of stocking. All these burdens are being carried by the Board and they have made it necessary for the Minister in charge of the Department to come to the House and ask for increased borrowing powers.
I come to my final point. During the Second Reading of the Bill, in reply to an intervention of mine, the Minister said that he was glad to announce that this was a borrowing Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) said, since vesting day not one penny piece has been given by the Government to the Board. The help given has been in the form of loans, and upon those loans substantial interest has been paid. It is my submission that the House and the country should know these facts, since the Coal Board is the subject of so much criticism. For those reasons I suport strongly the Bill, which the Minister has recommended to us this afternoon.

6.26 p.m.

Mr. Tom Brown: In a few words I want to emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. B. Taylor) has said in paying his tribute to the National Coal Board. It goes without saying that since 1951—not 1947—we have had constantly severe "digs" at the mining industry, and particularly at the Coal Board, as I said a week or two ago.
We have just listened to a speech from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Barry (Mr. Gower), who has more or less changed his attitude. The hon. Gentleman has been praising the Coal Board and has been asking that more money should be allocated to it so that it may continue with the work it started in 1957. In my opinion, some of the criticisms that we have had, both inside this Chamber and outside, particularly from the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), would have been much better left unsaid.
From time to time, on the Order Paper, and in his speeches, not only in this Chamber but also outside, the hon. Gentleman has had a "dig" at the Board. It does not matter who is the Minister of Power; every time, it is said, the Board is to blame. Now, however, we are reaching the stage when there is


a change of front. I ask myself, why this change of front? Why could not words of encouragement and inspiration have been given in the past to a body of men who have been trying their best to produce what the nation requires?
As I listen to the speeches that are made here, I sometimes think that hon. Gentleman opposite underestimate the problem facing the Coal Board. Throughout the years since its inception it has been facing a problem which no private industry has ever faced. To repeat what I said three or four weeks ago, if the old owners of the coal mines had done what they should have done—I know that I am skating on thin ice, Mr. Speaker—according to the Reid Report, the problem would not have been as severe as it is today.
The hon. Member for Kidderminster fails to realise the costs of maintenance. The Parliamentary Secretary, as a mining man, would fully realise that if underground work were stagnant this would not be so much of a problem, but work is taking place during all of the 24 hours of the day and there has to be constant maintenance. In 1958, total output was 216 million tons, valued at £900 million. Now we have an hon. Member opposite, assisted by two colleagues, trying to bring down to the lowest possible depths the work that the Board has done.
I support the Bill wholeheartedly and I hope that we shall hear no more, either in the Chamber or outside, castigation and condemnation and criticism of the Board, who are facing up to the problem magnificently after all the difficulties with which they were confronted in 1947.

6.31 p.m.

Mr. James Griffiths: I shall be very brief, because I want to give the Parliamentary Secretary ample time to reply to the various attacks that have been made upon him and his right hon. Friend from the benches behind him. These Tories attack each other with venom. Talk about controversy within the Labour Party! It is not in it. We have heard from the benches opposite today references to "cooked accounts", "cooked books" and Ministers who do not tell the truth. What a revelation for the country! We have never had it so bad.
The purpose of the Bill is to provide the money, by which the Board will be enabled to carry out its revised plan, finance stocking, increase efficiency and find itself a secure place in the future. Why a revised plan? The fact is that all Governments since the end of the war and until recently have made tremendous demands upon the coal industry. It began in 1945 with an industry which was run down after thirty years of neglect. Suddenly for the first time in peacetime during my life, the industry was asked to respond to the demands of an economy working to full pressure. Over a very short period it had to meet an increased demand of 30 million to 35 million tons per annum, and met it.
I was a Minister at the time and I remember being asked by the then Prime Minister to go to the miners and ask them to increase their output. I went to them as an old miner and they did it. They did it with broken-down tools and a broken industry. Not only was machinery broken, but the spirit of the men was broken and it all had to be repaired.
Then, suddenly, there was this change. This is not the first time that the industry has been confronted with a sudden adjustment and an almost catastrophic reduction in demand. It has happened before, but what a difference in the way it was done in past years and the way it has been done now. Think of the size of the problem with which the Board was confronted. From 1956 to 1959 there was a reduction in demand of 33½ million tons—28 million tons in the domestic market and 5½ million tons in the export trade. This was a tremendous reduction.
We had this situation in the 1920s and 1930s, and we all know what was done then. Pits were closed, communities were made derelict, miners were put on short time, wages were cut to £2 a week. By the end of 1932 there were nearly 400,000 miners out of work. That is the other way of treating this situation. At that time the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) was not here, nor was I.

Mr. Nabarro: It must have been a long time ago.

Mr. Griffiths: The then Conservative Government—a true Blue Tory Government—gave an open subsidy to the industry of £25 million. It all went down the drain. The hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster), who made a constructive speech, will not deny that. The money was used in nine months by the coal owners in intense competition in the domestic market and in the export market, and at the end we were in a worse position than at the beginning. Now the present Government, like previous Tory Governments, are building up a record on subsidies.
The Government would not dare to adopt the methods of 1925 to deal with this problem. We have to meet the situation in this new way. I compliment the Board on the way it has handled it in consultation with the National Union of Mineworkers. The falling demand to which they have had to adjust themselves is equal to the output of South Wales, Northumberland and Cumberland put together. That was a problem, after many years in which we all asked them to get the coal out, no matter what the size or shape.
Because of these circumstances the capital investment in the coal mines has been distorted. I should like to have seen a better relationship between the amount of capital spent on production and the amount spent on cleaning, but at the time both sides of this House, all Governments and industry generally asked the coal industry to get out the coal anyhow.
Now the Board has to meet this problem. It has met it during the last four years and I pay tribute to it and the union and the Ministers who co-operated. There are 70,000 fewer miners than before. The whole of this terrific problem has been got through smoothly. I come, of course, from an area which has paid part of the price, but I think that we ought to pass a vote of thanks to everybody in the industry for the way in which they have handled this task.
In circumstances of this kind it is almost natural, where an industry meets a falling demand, to cut down output. I remember that the first president of the South Wales miners, Mr. William Abraham, whom I eventually succeeded, and who sat in this House for many years, had his own way of dealing with

the situation. He went to a conference and said that the demand for coal was falling, and that if they allowed it to fall their labour would become cheap and wages would be cut down. The only way to deal with that, he said, was to stop producing. He suggested that they stop work on the first Monday of every month. He was known also as "Mabon" and these days became known as "Mabon days."
That was the old method, but what has happened now? With all the fears, in 1959 output per man-shift at the coalface rose by 6 per cent. and o.m.s. overall rose by 5·3 per cent., while the cost of production came down by 1s. 9d. per cent. Let us occasionally pat on the back the men who, faced with a threat to their livelihood, have made such efforts. It may be said that there has been an enormous injection of capital, but it need not have been as large in the last few years if it had been larger in the 'twenties and 'thirties. The Board deserves our full support.
I am disturbed about stocks and I now come to the constructive speech of the hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde, whose speeches of pre-1939 days I remember. I listened with much interest to what he had to say today, that unless we reduced stocks by increasing industrial production, we had to face three possibilities, with which I do not quarrel—short time, "going easy" and closing pits.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman knows that in the coalfield with which he was closely associated one method of dealing with this sort of problem was to have short-time working, three days a week, in the summer months. Most pits in the Midlands worked only three days a week in the summer. That remedy is now closed to us. It is closed because the men have a guaranteed working week and because the National Union of Mineworkers would not tolerate it for a moment—and nor would I.
As the hon. and gallant Member appreciated, in the 1930s men in pits in the Midlands and South Wales had to work only three days a week, for they had nowhere else to go, but nowadays it would not be possible to have men working in the pits for three days and in a factory for three days a week. If


we are to keep miners in the industry, we must provide them with a full working week in the industry. Short time is no longer a remedy; "going easy" would be impossible, for this momentum of increased productivity must be kept up.
We are, therefore, left with the choice of helping the industry, and I throw out a few suggestions. I ask the Government whether they will allow the Coal Board, unaided and uphelped, to face the competition of fuel oil, which is dumping of the worst kind? Will they now ensure that there is closer co-operation among the fuel and power industries, notably electricity, gas and coke? Thirdly, it is essential that the Government should give every encouragement to the Board to meet what is a new problem which has arisen from the Clean Air Act, which was piloted through the House by the hon. Member for Kidderminster.
I was recently told that by 1965 we should need ½ million tons more smokeless fuel than we are now producing if we were to meet the demands arising from the gradual extension of clean air legislation. The best smokeless fuel in the world—and I declare my interest—is anthracite, and we can produce more of it. We are not stocking anthracite. I hope that we are well on the way to solving the problem of how to mix coal so that it does not give off so much sulphur, and so on.
The export trade is declining and in the European market we are facing Polish exports. In the 1930s we tried the policy of beggaring each other and we should not start that again. The Poles are selling coal almost certainly for shillings below the cost of production, because they must, somehow, get foreign currency. In this modern world, we have a nation driven to sell a product which is dearly bought with life so that it can get foreign currency! Can we not do something about that? Poland is making bilateral agreements with Denmark. What are our Government doing?
The mining industry has thrown up some very fine men, and I speak with personal pride of a contemporary of mine who started working life very much in the way that I did—he started at fourteen years of age and I started a little

earlier—Jim Bowman. He has proved to be one of the ablest administrators which the country has seen in post-war years. I am proud of that and I pay my tribute to him. I hope that his work continues. I hope that he will be asked to continue it. The industry needs his constructive leadership as well as the co-operation of the union. I hope that he will go on to face this crucial situation in the industry to which he has given so many years of his life and which, given the help of the Government and the House of Commons, will come through the crisis.
We shall need coal and coal miners for many years. They have not always had a square deal from Governments. If they are given a square deal now, they will give a square deal to the nation.

6.46 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. J. C. George): The right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has given me at the last moment a catalogue of important questions and I am sure that he will not expect me to make widespread policy pronouncements on the Third Reading of a Bill of this kind. I assure him that the Minister is constantly trying to induce greater co-operation among the three power industries which he mentioned, electricity, gas and coal, and that that will be his continuing objective.
Plans are going ahead to provide increased output of smokeless fuels for the years immediately to come. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman knows that two great new anthracite collieries are nearly ready in South Wales to help with that important problem.
Exports are a very wide subject. We are facing intense Polish competition. In 1959 the Poles were selling at £2 a ton f.o.b., which scarcely covers the cost of transport from the pit to the port. We are selling at very cut prices ourselves. But neither the Poles nor we, even together, could rule the foreign selling prices of coal, for we are faced with competition from American coal and cheap oil and even Russian oil. It is not a practical proposition to think that we can fix the prices at which coal will sell. Nevertheless, this is a matter for serious consideration, which it is now having.
Since there has been general support for the Bill, I shall confine myself to answering the questions which have been put to the Government. The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) stressed that the Bill dealt with loans and not subsidies. That should be made absolutely clear. The National Coal Board has not defaulted on any of the loans made to it or on any of the interest payments which it was due to make. The Bill is a continuation of the policy of financing the Board by Government loans which are repayable at proper rates of interest. The purpose is to raise the efficiency of the industry in accordance with the "Revised Plan for Coal".
It would be churlish not to recognise that some of the results are now becoming apparent. I have criticised the National Coal Board as much as anybody when I have thought that it needed criticism, but I shall give the Board credit when I think that credit is due to it, and I shall not be restrained from doing that by anyone behind me calling it a Socialist action.
The improvement in the results from deep mines has been noticeably rising in recent months. The hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. B. Taylor) quoted figures of production from 1941 onwards and concluded by saying that in 1958 output per man-shift was 25·6 cwt. as against 21·5 cwt. in 1947. I am sure that he and other hon. Members will be glad to know that in the week ended 6th February, this year, overall output in the industry was approximately 28 cwt. per man-shift. That is the fruit of the policy of providing finance to create greater efficiency within the industry. The "Revised Plan for Coal" envisages that in 1965 output per man-shift will be 30–31 cwt. It is obvious that that is easily attainable at the rate we are going now.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) said that this was a case of endless borrowing without profitability. The N.C.B., and here I quote from the "Revised Plan for Coal", has said:
It is the Board's objective to secure a substantial reduction in the accumulated deficit over the period 1960–1965 as a whole, by reason of improvements in productivity and reductions in costs.
It seems obvious that improvements in productivity will be forthcoming—for that is what is needed to allow the Board to square the books and not cook them.
The hon. Member for Bedwellty was right when he said that about half the capital expenditure so far incurred has been met from inside the industry. It has reached a point where the National Coal Board can look forward with confidence to seeing 80 per cent. of its output coming from new or reconstructed collieries by 1965. The industry can look forward to a sound future if productivity is allowed to rise.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster) raised a point with which I should like to deal. Targets have been sent out to the coalfields which will limit output this year. It is not an easy task to decide whether that should be done. The right hon. Member for Llanelly recited three conditions necessary to achieve the target output and not to exceed it. First, working short time. That is "out," because of the guaranteed five-day week agreement. Secondly, closing more pits. The National Coal Board has set its face against that. It has entered into settlements in good faith and intends to keep them.
We must reluctantly look at the third suggestion. It is a moral destroyer. It would be inadvisable to take such action, but if output is to be fixed for the year at a certain level it may well be necessary. It may, regrettably, be necessary to tell the management to go slow on productivity. There is no other way. It is regrettable, but it may have to be done because it is the intention of the Board not to increase stocking in 1960.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde also made another important observation. He shared the natural worry about the position of stocks. He thought that my right hon. Friend was too sanguine when he said that there would be no rise in 1960. He gave a warning that 16 million tons of untreated smalls might undergo deterioration at a greater rate than that mentioned by my right hon. Friend. We must pay attention to the wide experience of my hon. Friend on these matters, but I am sure that he would agree that my right hon. Friend can do nothing better than take the best possible advice on the deterioration of coal stocks. My right hon. Friend has the best possible advice, and he is bound to


accept it. My hon. Friend went on to say that he doubted whether the 4s. allowed by the National Coal Board after the first two years—I should correct that; it is, in fact, after the first year that the charge becomes 4s.—would be enough to bring back the untreated coal for treatment.
That is not the purpose of the 4s. That meets the interest charges and nothing else. The allowance for treating coal is part of the original £1 a ton, so the National Coal Board has made arrangements for the treatment of untreated coal and allowed money for that purpose.
I now turn to deal with efficiency. I hope that hon. Members who raised this matter during the debate will feel that the improved efficiency justifies the money that has been spent.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster suggested that the estimates accepted by my right hon. Friend were made by officials in the Ministry who were more or less under instructions from the National Coal Board.

Mr. Nabarro: Not instructions.

Mr. George: The estimating of future demand for coal is treated as a serious matter both by the National Coal Board and by the Ministry. The Board does not pluck figures out of thin air and set them before the Chairman of the Board. It engages in widespread consultations with the largest customers and from its experience, and, after allowing for optimism or pessimism, it produces figures which will approximate to the real demand. There are experts in Hobart House who deal with this, but that is not the end of the matter. Our experts in the Ministry make their own estimates of future demand. With their experience and close contact with all new methods in industry they estimate the future consumption of coal. The estimates are prepared along parallel lines, and these two sets of experts then come together, look at each other's estimates, trim them and then put them before the Minister. They do not pretend that they are forecasting with complete accuracy the demand for coal in the future. They cannot do that. No one can do that because there are too many imponderables.
My right hon. Friend is getting the best possible advice. The estimates are prepared by people best qualified to make them, and I am sure that the House would agree that my right hon. Friend has no course open to him other than to base his plans on those estimates. He cannot accept suggestions about consumption which are put forward from this side or the other side of the House which are not backed by experience and consultations like those which I have mentioned. They are real estimates in many cases, but others are simply hunches which are unacceptable to the Minister.
My hon. Friend went on to make some serious charges He said that the loans made to the Board were ultimately payable by the taxpayer. That is wrong. He asked me who finances the Consolidated Fund. I expect that he knows the answer, or he should do. The Consolidated Fund borrows its money on the market and it lends it to the National Coal Board at proper rates of interest and with stipulated times for repayment.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, the National Coal Board has not defaulted in any repayments. It is wrong to suggest that it is being financed by taxpayers' money. My hon. Friend went on to charge the Minister with deficit financing. That would be a dereliction of duty. It would be wrong for the Minister to indulge in deficit financing. The deficits incurred by the Board have been, and will be this year, financed by reserves within the Board itself, and not by the Minister.
My hon. Friend charged the Minister with dereliction of duty for not guessing the results for 1960. How unwise and unhelpful it would be if a Minister of the Crown stood up and guessed what the results of the Board would be in 1960. My right hon. Friend replied to that proposition earlier. It would be unwise and unhelpful, and we have no intention of trying to forecast results for 1960.
My hon. Friend further charged the Board with cooking the books. I think that my hon. Friend should give that matter serious consideration because he has charged not only the Board but the accountants with cooking the books. That is regrettable.
If there are any questions which I have not answered I hope that I will be excused. I ask the House to give the Bill its Third Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — DEVON WATER BILL (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

7.0 p.m.

Sir Henry Studholme: I appreciate that some of my hon. Friends will be very properly putting forward the views of water undertakings which disagree with the terms of the Bill, but I hope that when they have voiced those views they will agree to the Second Reading so that it can go upstairs to Committee and the details can be thrashed out. The Bill is right in principle, and is necessary for the water supplies of Devon.
As explained in the statement issued by the county council, the object of the Bill is to regroup the water undertakings in the administrative county of Devon and certain adjoining areas and to adjust the finances of those water undertakings so as to distribute the cost of the water supplies more fairly between the consumers and the ratepayers of Devon. At present, there are 22 water undertakings in the county, and the Bill proposes to reduce that number to three by reconstructing the North, South and East Devon Water Boards so that they absorb the smaller water undertakings in their respective neighbourhoods.
When the three water boards were formed and enlarged in 1945, 1950 and 1951, it was thought that the county ratepayers would have to contribute only a few pence in the £ towards the cost of the water supply. That would have been quite a fair division as between the county ratepayers and the consumers. But, as unfortunately so often happens, costs increased, and today the rate has risen to 1s. 5d. in the £, with the result that between 80 per cent. and 90 per cent. of the Board's net expenditure is

now being financed by the county council, and the extraordinary position has arisen wherein the county council has no control over the rate of expenditure by the water boards. That is very unsatisfactory, and is wrong in principle.
I now want to read out what the Bill proposes, as described in the statement from the clerk to the Devon County Council. The statement says that the Bill proposes that
the County Council should make grants related to rural capital expenditure on similar lines to the grants made by County Councils under the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944, but more generous in amount. The balance of the deficiency of each board would be borne by the constituent councils of the board and, therefore, paid for out of the district rates instead of out of the county rates. The control of the board by the constituent councils will ensure that the funds of the board are used to the best advantage of both ratepayers and consumers.
I have heard it said that the county council has rushed into the matter with undue haste and inadequate consultation, but that is not true. The question of regrouping the water supplies in Devon has been discussed for about fifteen years, to my knowledge, and the time has now come when if the county council had not introduced the Bill the Minister would have had to issue an order for the regrouping of Devon water undertakings. Some of these water undertakings, notably the North Devon Water Board, which have liked this, because they would then have had a local inquiry. But the county council is introducing the Bill because the present financial arrangements are extremely unsatisfactory as between the boards and the county council, and are wrong in principle. Regrouping cannot be settled unless the present unsatisfactory financial formula is altered, and it cannot be altered unless, at the same time, the regrouping is settled. Regrouping and financing therefore have to be treated as one operation, and that is why a Bill is necessary.

Mr. Robert Mathew: I hope my hon. Friend is not suggesting that the proposals contained in the Bill have been discussed for fifteen years. Various other proposals for regrouping have been discussed since the Minister received his Report in 1954, but the proposals contained in the Bill have not.

Sir H. Studholme: Of course, these proposals have not been discussed for fifteen years, but local authorities were given an opportunity to discuss them and to negotiate with the county council. Some authorities have done so and some have not. But the whole question of regrouping has been discussed for many years, and the time has come when something must be done.
I am not competent to discuss the financial formula and the various arguments of the different authorities. I would only say that 11 authorities oppose the financial provisions of the Bill and are trying to get preferential terms for their consumers. That is only natural. Two water boards, nine rural district councils and one municipal corporation, on the other hand, think that the county council is being unfair to them because it is proposing preferential terms to some of the urban authorities, which they themselves have not got. That attitude is also very human and understandable.
Of the three water boards, only the North Devon Board is opposed to the proposal to alter the basis of the county council contribution, and that board has produced an alternative formula. The other two boards do not disagree in principle, but they want to alter the basis suggested in the Bill to one which is more advantageous to themselves. Everyone wants to get the best deal he can, but the only thing the county council is interested in is in getting a just settlement between the conflicting claims of the different authorities.
I think I have said enough to show that this is not a simple question. The best solution would be to agree to the Second Reading of the Bill today so that it could be sent to Committee where the petitioners and the county council would have an opportunity to state their cases.
I am convinced that the time has arrived when the water undertakings of Devon must be reorganised, and three boards would seem to be the logical solution. We can no longer allow water to be taken piecemeal from the rivers. That is why I opposed the Torquay Water Bill last year. Our water resources must be regrouped into larger units. That is the only way in which we can meet the water needs of the county in the long run. A mass of small undertakings will not do that. This was shown very clearly in the drought in South Devon

last summer. It was only because the South Devon Board came to the rescue of other smaller undertakings that we avoided a complete breakdown in the water supplies and the chaos that would have followed.
Hon. Members ask why there should not be voluntary amalgamations. That would be ideal, but voluntary amalgamations have failed sufficiently to reduce the number of water undertakings in Devon. It is therefore clear that some means of compulsory amalgamation must be used. It is no good putting off things any longer. Delay may be very dangerous, and if we have a dry summer like that of last year there might be a very serious water shortage in many parts of the county.
I hope the House will agree to the Second Reading. The Bill can then go to Committee, where any questions which have not already been decided as a result of negotiations between the different parties—any question, for instance, as to how much urban and rural consumers should contribute, respectively—can be decided after a proper hearing and a full discussion.

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Robert Mathew: My hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Sir H. Studholme), in supporting the Bill, said that this was not a simple question. That is a very great understatement. As he said, we have been considering this problem ever since the Water Act. My submission to the House tonight is that the Bill has been hastily conceived. It has been brought forward without proper consultation with the many interests, which, in a number of cases, are conflicting, and it is not a proper solution of the problem in the county.
I much regret that the House, under the Private Bill procedure, has to decide whether or not to take a decision on Second Reading on a matter which is a mass of detail. My hon. Friend referred to the great detail and complications of the various financial differentials proposed in the Bill. I should like to see our procedure allow a debate after the Select Committee has considered the matter in the very great detail which is necessary in view of its complexity.
It is some measure of the shortcomings of the Bill that, although my hon. Friend


said that 11 local authorities have petitioned, in fact, out of the 47 local authorities in the county, 41 are objecting to the Bill in one form or another, either in their own name or through boards in whose areas they are. This large number of petitions, should the House decide to give the Bill a Second Reading, will come before the Committee in due course.
At this stage of the debate I am not of a mind to ask the House to reject the Bill, because I think that this whole problem and its many difficulties should be looked at by the Committee. I say that subject to anything that may be said by my hon. Friends or hon. Members opposite at a later stage.
My criticism of the Bill is that in its present form it has been hastily conceived and that there has been insufficient time for consultation. In fact, although we knew that a Committee was sitting during the latter part of 1958, and again during the first part of 1959, it was only in July that it was realised that there was an intention on the part of the Devon County Council to deposit a Bill in this House in what was then the next Session of Parliament.
In my own area, East Devon, there is very great dissatisfaction and the authorities are taking widely different points of view. Although an agreement might have been arrived at had there been time for consultation, it was impossible after the Bill had been deposited at the end of last year. To some extent the Devon County Council confronted the local water undertakers with a fait accompli, by saying, "There is the differential structure and we would like you comments now." There was very little time for proper consultation. I say with all respect to the Devon County Council that its public relations slipped up very badly.
I say that the Bill was inspired, as indicated by my hon. Friend, by financial considerations and financial considerations only.

Sir H. Studholme: I did not say "only". It is partly financial consideration and partly regrouping, as I tried to point out.

Mr. Mathew: My answer to that is the water engineering considerations have not been given enough attention. There has not been time to work them out.

Too little attention has been given to the very great engineering problems. My hon. Friend said that he supported the Bill partly in principle and partly because of the financial considerations, but I should like to know whether the county council area of Devon will get one pint of water more as the result of the Bill. I think that the answer is "No". I hope that the Committee will have that very much in mind when examining the Bill.
I say that the Bill is inspired by financial considerations primarily from the point of view of the county council rather than the constituent local authorities and other water undertakers in the proposed areas. It ignores the recommendations of my right hon. Friend's own Report, the Vail Report of 1954, which went into great detail about the future of water in the county from the engineering point of view and recommended four boards—the East Devon Board, the North Devon Board, the Plym Area Board and the South Devon Area Board. It recognised the main financial fact which comes out if one looks at the Bill.
Devon is the largest geographical county after Yorkshire and the largest administrative county in the country and has a very sparse population so far as those areas are concerned. Yet Exeter, with a higher rate product, is left out, although the Minister's Report recommended that it should be brought into any regrouping in East Devon. I hope that the Committee will have this matter very much in mind. It goes to the root of the financial problem and to the root of the problem of getting agreement in East Devon, which is my own area.
In East Devon, there have been a great many consultations, in trying to come together with the Minister and his officials, towards some form of regrouping so that we may face, in the spirit of the Water Act, the problems of the future for supplying, in particular, the rural areas. Of course, there were some disagreements. At the time when the county council intervened partly on financial grounds we were moving towards agreement.
May I remind the House that the present Postmaster-General, the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, in an


Adjournment debate on this matter, said, in reply to me:
Towards the middle of last year"—
that is, 1958—
it seemed that a fairly large measure of agreement—I do not put it any higher than that—had been reached. I think that there was also hope that the terms of the draft Order might be settled quite soon. As my hon. Friend knows, however, regrouping, not only in East Devon but throughout the whole of the County of Devon, is marking time due to the decision of the county council to examine the financial arrangements for water supply in the county as a whole."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd July, 1959; Vol. 609, c. 1682.]
I am convinced that, given time, there could have been an agreement, but in the circumstances in which the Bill has been deposited and brought before the House such agreement was quite impossible because of lack of time.
So far as my own undertakings, which are to a very large extent self-sufficient, are concerned—the urban districts of Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Sidmouth and Seaton—I am quite certain that they were prepared to work out a proper agreement had they been given time. My right hon. Friend has assured me before now that Exmouth has a first-rate, viable water undertaking, pumping as much as 1½ million gallons a day. Already, under a bulk agreement, it supplies the rural areas and fulfils what I would call the spirit of the 1945 Water Act; but it stands to gain absolutely nothing by being taken over. I have no doubt that they would take a very different view of this Bill, or of any regrouping proposals that my right hon. Friend might propose, were Exeter included in order to bear its proper share of the financial burden.
The East Devon Water Board has done a very good job in supplying the rural areas. I have had a great deal to do with the Board over the last five years, and I want to pay tribute to it for what it has done. That Board should have been a nucleus of any regrouping in the East Devon area. It has the experience, and it has the officials to carry the work out. It is petitioning against the Bill because, again, it is dissatisfied with the differential arrangements. In fact, something has been introduced by the county council that does not please anyone at all in the county.
I am sure that a number of the petitioners who are asking for rejection of the Bill would, had it been put in reasonable form, have accepted the underlying principle, but I do not think that the county will benefit if the Bill passes into law in its present form. In East Devon, we have, on a long sea coast, a number of highly efficient undertakings. Tribute has been paid by my right hon. Friend and by the county council itself to the Exmouth undertaking, and I am absolutely certain that East Devon, which has throughout maintained a reasonable attitude towards the proposals, would have been prepared to negotiate to see that the financial arrangements were on a proper basis; and to support a regrouping proposal that faced the reality that water and engineering considerations should come first.
Sidmouth is included. It is a first-rate small undertaking, but I understand that it is not technically possible, because of geographical position, to bring one gallon of water into Sidmouth or to take one gallon out of it. Yet it is included in the Bill.
I hope that if the House decides to give the Bill a Second Reading, the Select Committee will study all these considerations with the closest care, because this is a bad Bill. It is bad, in my submission, because it is reasonable only from the financial point of view of the county council. It is wholly unreasonable from the point of view of the ratepayers in the rural areas, and it is wholly unreasonable for those areas where the local authorities already have their own water undertakings. It is also inequitable over the county.
I ask my right hon. Friend, if he intends to intervene in the debate, to say that the inclusion of Exeter is really very important to the rural areas. To refer, again, to the debate on 23rd July, I would remind him that the Parliamentary Secretary then said:
With regard to the vexed question—as, indeed, it is—of the inclusion or otherwise of Exeter, my right hon. Friend has made it known that he does not look upon Exeter's inclusion as essential for the effective organisation of water supplies in East Devon, although I concede to my hon. Friend that the inclusion of Exeter was recommended in the 1954 water survey. It is true that if Exeter were to come in, it would be financially advantageous to the other authorities and I have no doubt that the county council is not excluding this


consideration from the review which is at present under way."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd July, 1959; Vol. 609, c. 1683.]
My information is that the county council did not settle, until very late, the all-important question whether or not Exeter should be included. For those reasons, I hope that the Committee will look at the Bill through a magnifying glass, and will come to the conclusion that this is a bad Measure and that other steps should be taken to deal with Devon's water problem.

7 25 p.m.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: Those of us who are opposed to the Bill recognise the need for amalgamation and the strength of the case for rationalising the supply of water in the County of Devon. There are, however, three points that I want to make. The first relates to the background to the Bill and bears out all that the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Mathew) has said about the behaviour of the county council. I do not want to wash dirty Devon linen, but, as the hon. Member has said, the county council has succeeded in alienating 41 out of the 47 local authorities in the county. That is a fairly good percentage.
The reason for that alienation is largely the way in which this Bill has been introduced. The first indication that it might be promoted was given on 2nd February of last year. The next thing that happened was that authorities were invited, on 27th May, to a meeting, when they were told that there would be working parties which would discuss the financial arrangements in detail. No such working parties were ever set up, and no such meetings ever took place.
The next thing the local authorities knew was when they were told in the autumn of last year that the county council had decided to promote the Bill, first, because there was an urgent need so to do and, secondly, because otherwise the Minister might make an Order. They were summoned in October to Exeter. They were given a vague indication of what the differentials would be, but were told that the North Devon Board was not prepared to accept them as it had not yet had an opportunity of inspecting the undertakings that it would have to take over.
The next they heard was that the county council had decided to promote

the Bill, and next day they were asked to send particulars so that that could be proceeded with: no detailed discussion, no working parties, no real, genuine attempt to get the voluntary co-operation of the constituent authorities involved. Finally, at the end of October they were given the figures proposed by the county council. It seems relevant that next Thursday there is to be a discussion at a meeting of the county council on a Motion that this whole Bill be withdrawn. The necessary number of signatures has been obtained to enable the matter to be debated.
I therefore say that the expense that would be involved, the amount of time that the Committee would have to spend, and the heat that would be engendered have all been brought about by the refusal of this county council to have adequate consultation—

Sir H. Studholme: I think the hon. Gentleman said that regrouping had not been considered until last February. It has been considered for years. It has been on the tapir for many years.

Mr. Thorpe: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Tavistock (Sir H. Studholme)—no doubt my speech has made the same wrong impression on him as his did on the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Mathew). This particular regrouping plan has not been considered since February last. There have obviously been other and voluntary regroupings, which I shall mention in a moment, that have been extremely successful, but these proposals were given to the local authorities only in February of last year and, as far as I know, there has been practically no detailed discussion of them with the constituent authorities.
The second point is that the North Devon Water Board is to take over four constituent authorities. One of them is South Molton. All I can say, in passing, about that is that it is a water authority with the lowest rate in the county and has connected 94 per cent. of the houses in its borough. It has supplied water free to its market for the last seventy years. On the strength of this asset—there are obviously others—it is to spend £30,000 in developing its market premises. This is the lifeblood of a rural town. What it will be faced with under the new scheme is buying its water from someone else and forcing the market to


pay for it. That will have a tremendous economic effect on the life of this borough. At the moment, it is continuing with its extension in the borough and, in the course of the next two years, I think there will be only thirty houses left without piped water.
The third and, in my submission, as important a point as any, is the reaction of the North Devon Water Board itself. The hon. Baronet said that only one of the constituent water authorities objected. I should have thought the fact that one had objected was of vital importance. Not merely one of the constituent bodies, but one of the boards, which is told it is to be the taker-over, has objected. Its objections are strong and clear. It recognises the need for amalgamation. It was created by a Bill introduced in this House and promoted by Devon County Council in 1945. Since that Bill was introduced, under Section 33 of the resulting Act, five corporations have voluntarily joined the North Devon Water Board, five urban district councils, and one rural district council. Since 1945 it has brought water to 400 villages and hamlets and to well over 2,500 farms.
In every case, the expansion of its operating area was by voluntary agreement with the constituent bodies concerned. Those constituent bodies joined only on the basis of the 1945 financial proposals contained in that Act. They were that, after the 6d. rate, the balance of the deficit should be shared among the constituent authorities, which would include Devon County Council. Devon County Council had that obligation under Section 150 of the Act. When it appeared before the Select Committee in the House of Lords there was no suggestion at all that this scheme would be on a temporary basis; quite the reverse. Now, nearly fifteen years later, a complete variation of the financial agreement which the council itself agreed to in the Bill it promoted fifteen years ago is asked for.
It was on those financial terms that the constituent authorities voluntarily joined the North Devon Water Board. They felt, as do the constituent authorities now, that the financial terms had not been properly thought out and that Devon County Council wanted to make a take-over bid with inadequate compensation, that by reason of the financial

provisions it was going to restrict rural development of water supplies which, Heaven knows, are bad enough at the moment, and that this is going greatly to cramp their style and operations.
This is the Bill which the county council is bringing in without any proper consultation with the authorities concerned. The Bill itself is a misnomer. One would have thought that it related to the whole of Devon. One would have thought, if one accepted the idea of a more equitable distribution of the burden of paying for water, that Exeter and Plymouth would have been included, but they are not to be included in this Bill. Any suggestion that this is going to be a proper county Bill is shown to be illogical in that respect because the two largest areas of population which are more able to help subsidise or assist in the cost of rural supplies are being deliberately left out of the Bill altogether.
It is a misnomer to call it a Water Bill. It relates to water, but it is not going to produce an extra drop of water throughout the whole of the county. I hope the Committee will bear in mind that this is an ill-considered Bill. It is illogical, the technical objections have not been properly met, there has been no real attempt at consultation, and the tremendous opposition which will follow will be as a direct result of the way in which the county council has promoted the Bill in the House. By Thursday the Committee may have had the news that this Bill has been withdrawn if the county council now has the power to do that. The Bill is causing very great opposition in the County of Devon, which I suggest need never have happened if the promoters had gone about it in a reasonable way and attempted to promote a Bill with the same diligence and concentration which they showed over the 1945 Water Bill.

Sir H. Studholme: The hon. Member said that this Bill would not produce any more water in Devon, but if the Bill goes through we shall get a very much better supply of water in South Devon from the River Dart.

Mr. Thorpe: Do I take it that the hon. Baronet is interested only in South Devon regrouping?

Sir H. Studholme: That is a most unworthy suggestion. I am interested in the whole county.

Mr. Thorpe: Obviously the hon. Baronet is interested in the county, but his knowledge of South Devon is greater than his knowledge of North Devon. I am taking the particular point of the North Devon Water Board. I have the honour to represent North Devon, and I should not claim to know more about South Devon than the hon. Member would know about North Devon. The fact that the hon. Baronet may make a case for his district is not a reason for saying that a case could be made for the whole county.

Sir H. Studholme: That is not an argument for saying that if the Bill goes through there will not be more water. There will be.

Mr. Speaker: I think this interchange had better cease.

7.37 p.m.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: If I may throw my hat into this ring, so to speak, I should say, with reference to the exchange which we have just heard, that that this Bill is not necessary to provide additional water for there are many other ways in which that could be produced without this Bill. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Sir H. Studholme) would not wish to mislead the House.
As hon. Members may know, although I represent a constituency called Torquay, it also comprises, apart from several villages, Paignton and Brixham. I should like at the beginning of my remarks to bring as much comfort as is available in the general onslaught on the Bill to the promoters, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock in particular, by saying that I carry with me tonight the welcome message that Brixham stands in favour of the Bill and has requested me to say so tonight. It is also right to say that, although Paignton has objected and its objections, in my submission, go to prove the lack of proper prior consultation, those objections are not to the Bill in principle but to certain Clauses and aspects which, if they could be remedied, would meet the point of view of Paignton.
Having given that limited amount of comfort, I must now move on to the

question of Torquay and the general attitude there which coincides very largely with what other hon. Members have said in this short debate. First, I wish to reiterate that it appears abundantly clear on the face of it that there has been a lack of proper prior consultation, as is shown by the fact that we have such imposing numbers and varieties of people objecting to the Bill. I have listened to a number of second readings of such Bills in my time. I was the victim of one to which there was considerable objection, the Torquay Water Bill, when I heard much of the weight of objection, but, my goodness, it was nothing like the weight of objection clearly apparent to this Bill. Not only are there forty-one out of forty-seven authorities objecting, but, in addition, three water boards—not one as the hon. Member for Devon North (Mr. Thorpe) said—have filed petitions against this Bill. That only strengthens the point he made.

Mr. Thorpe: I apologise for interrupting, but I wish to say that I am delighted to know that the other two water boards have joined the sacred throng.

Mr. Bennett: I will not read the names of all the authorities which are opposing the Bill, but they include urban and rural district councils and three water boards. Even N.A.L.G.O.,—and this should interest some hon. Member opposite—has joined in the general affray. It should be apparent to the Promoters of the Bill that if they proceed on the present lines rather than take the advice of most of us who want to see some sensible regrouping in Devon, they will not only cause even further disturbance within the county but will involve the county ratepayers in further considerable expense. I cannot say exactly how much that expense will be, but if hon. Members think of 41 Petitioners and their lawyers calling and giving evidence in Committee upstairs, they will realise that, whatever else it may be, this will surely go down in history as one of the most expensive ever Water Bills, in view of the large number of objections to it which will have to be heard.
It is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock said, that regrouping generally has been under discussion for a long time, certainly long before I represented Torquay in the House. We


are, however, discussing the Bill and not earlier Measures, which may have been considered hitherto. Torquay was first informed formally of the intention to introduce this Bill only last July. That was the first meeting, and at that meeting Torquay was given a specific promise—I stress that point—that working parties would be set up to consider all the rival interests which were affected. It is known that that promise has not been kept and that the working parties have never been set up.
The county council has said that the Bill is needed urgently because of the water shortage. The point has been made quite fairly, and I mentioned it in my opening remarks when intervening in the exchanges between the hon. Member for Devon, North and my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock, that, and it is generally admitted, this is not a Bill to find more water but a Bill, rightly or wrongly, prepared from the financial and administrative point of view. To use the water shortage in Devon as an argument for the Bill is, therefore, not fair.
Torquay has already reached agreement for the development of a new source of supply from the lower reaches of the Teign. I should like hon. Members, and in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock, to know that this time Torquay has the agreement of the representatives of the Devon Water Board in this scheme and the agreement of the Legal and General Purposes Committee of the Devon County Council. Torquay, therefore, does not need this Bill in order to obtain more water.
As the main object of the Bill is financial and not engineering, it seems to me that we must bring Plymouth and Exeter into it, too, if we are to consider the case fairly. If the argument were being advanced on engineering grounds, the county council could argue the need to provide more water, but the county council cannot have it both ways, and since it is principally a financial Bill, there is a strong case for bringing in Exeter and Plymouth and for having consultations with them to this end. If, on the other hand, it is introduced on engineering grounds, there is no logical reason for including a number of authorities which do not want to be included,

among them Torquay and the water board which the hon. Member for Devon, North mentioned, which does not want to be brought into it.
It would surely be wise of the county council not to try to steamroller this Bill through upstairs. Like other hon. Members who have spoken, I do not think that it would be right or appropriate to have a Division on Second Reading, not because I feel that it would be lost by the opponents of the Bill but because I do not think that in such a short debate we have all the technical knowledge available to us to enable us to reach a fair considered decision. That is one of the disadvantages of the present procedure.
Although I do not feel that it would be right to have a Division on Second Reading, it seems to me that there is a very good case for the county council thinking again about it, having the consultations which a number of local authorities thought would be held and then bringing forward a more generally agreed Measure than this Bill is at present. In that context it is worthy of note that this Thursday, in only two days' time, a meeting is to be held, at Exeter, sponsored by a number of opponents of the Bill—the requisite number to call such an emergency meeting—to urge on the county council, from within the county, the withdrawal of the Bill which we are discussing. That produces a paradoxical situation. I do not know exactly what would happen if we allow the Bill to have a Second Reading and the county council passed a resolution in two days' time urging its withdrawal. That is a problem which will have to be decided in due course, fortunately by someone other than myself.
Although the Minister has on a number of occasions urged sensible regrouping in Devon and has never hidden his point of view that in the last resort it may be necessary to have non-voluntary regrouping, I suggest that all the weight of the evidence which has been produced shows that that ultimate situation has not yet been reached and that there is still an opportunity for the voluntary regrouping which the Minister has himself said he would prefer to see.
For these reasons, although I do not intend to urge my hon. Friends to force a Division tonight, I seriously wish that


my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock would convey to the promoters of the Bill the widespread feeling among hon. Members representing a variety of constituencies that the Bill has not been handled very well and that the county council ought to think again.

7.48 p.m.

Mr. Percy Browne: I add my voice to those which are protesting against the terms of the Bill, although I am quite certain that it was put together with the best intentions in the world. I say this particularly because the chairman of the Devon County Council, Sir George Hayter Hames, has done a great deal for the county. Moreover, I have an ulterior motive in that he is one of my constituents.
The Bill is ill-conceived. As other hon. Members have said, this must be the case because of the number of authorities which are opposing it—41 out of 47. That is quite enough to break the back of Tom Pearse's grey mare. Since this is a debate with a Devon flavour, it is appropriate to say that this is not a fable and that I have two people in my division who claim direct descent from Tom Cobley in spite of the fact that Tom Cobley never married.
There are three basic objections to the Bill by the authorities in my division—Bideford, Okehampton and Crediton. One of those objections is shared by the North Devon Water Board, which is also an objector. The first objection—that of failure to consult properly before the Bill was put together—has been dealt with very fairly by the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe). The authorities were asked to go to Exeter, where they were told what would happen.
I believe that the reason the county councillors voted for the Bill was that they were told that if they did not do so the Minister would make an order. I believe that the whole nub of the problem is the shortage of water in South Devon. Although the hon. Member for Devon. North said that the Bill would provide not one more drop of water, it is interesting to note that in the memorandum put out by the Devon authorities they say,
… last summer showed that there is an urgent need for further and better water supplies in South Devon.
I suggest that the Minister would not have had to make an order for North

Devon or East Devon and would have had to concern himself only with South Devon. That would be the albatross around his neck. Perhaps I could quote "The Ancient Mariner",
Water, water, everywhere.
Nor any drop to drink.
If the Bill had not been promoted, would the Minister have made an order to amalgamate the Devon water undertakings into three boards?
The second objection has been aired already, namely, the exclusion of Exeter and Plymouth from the three boards. The Vail Report of 1952, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Mr. Mathew), suggested that there should be four boards and that Exeter and Plymouth should be included. That would result in lower water rates all round throughout the county, and one can only cite the position that the South Western Electricity Board would be in if Bristol were removed. There has been a lack of effort by the county council to persuade Exeter to join.
The third and fundamental principle is this. In my division, three perfectly good and capable water undertakings will be taken over by the North Devon Water Board without any compensation whatsoever. This is absolutely wrong. We have guarded, perhaps highlighted by Crichel Down, the principle that there should be compensation for property taken over. The memorandum issued by the Devon County Council says:
… it is now clear that compulsory powers will have to be used".
That is exactly what is happening. The council offered differential terms to these undertakings if they would go to Exeter and disclose the figures requested. Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that they refused, particularly because they already contribute 1s. 5½d. in the county rate towards water undertakings from which they derive no benefit at all. It is doubtful if the county council has an obligation to supervise the county water supplies. The objectors' petition, which came today, says that the duty to distribute
water supplies throughout England and Wales … and to secure the effective execution by water undertakings of a national policy relating to water, is specifically imposed on the Minister of Housing and Local Government by the Water Acts 1945 and 1948".


Apart from those three main points, there are three subsidiary ones, all of which are financial. First, the North Devon Water Board objects because it will no longer be able to precept on the county council. This will slow down its rate of rural connection. It will be necessary for it to make frequent changes in its charges, which, under the circumstances, is almost impossible.
Secondly, the rural councils which object to the Bill will have to pay considerably more. I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Sir H. Studholme), perhaps for the first time since I have been a Member of the House. Clause 50 (1, a) and (1, b) bear this out. This means, in the words of Major Allhusen, who is the chairman of the North Devon Water Board:
The cost of carrying water to the rural areas will have to be paid for by the district, and not by the County Council".
This would aggravate the lack of water in remote rural districts, as has been pointed out by the hon. Member for Devon, North. It will be further aggravated because today the water is going to the remotest districts and the Ministry pays a grant in proportion to the amount of benefit which will be derived from the water. Therefore, the remoter the areas covered the smaller in proportion is the grant.
Thirdly, the urban and borough councils which object to their undertakings being taken over are naturally very worried also about the financial side. Crediton Urban Council now pays 1s. 5½d. as a county precept, from which it derives no benefit. At the same time it pays its own rate of 1s. 4d. making a total of 2s. 9½d. Under the Bill it will pay a county precept of 11½d. and 4s. to start with—that figure will rise—for water, which will make a total of 4s. 11d. It will cost Bideford Borough Council an extra £80,640 in the next ten years, assuming that it will not have to spend more than £40,000 on capital works. Thereafter, it will cost the council an extra £14,400 a year. That is a great deal of money for a smallish borough. There are also complaints of the new concept introduced in the Bill of using the prescribed 1d. rate product in place of the actual 1d. rate product as heretofore.
If the Minister wishes to see the number of undertakings in the county

reduced he should make an order. The Bill is introduced mainly for financial reasons, the idea being to stop the boards precepting on the county council, because the county council has no control over this. I sincerely hope that the Bill, in its present form anyway, will not become law. If it is to become law at any stage, there must be drastic alterations, and the objectors whom I have mentioned and the objections which I have outlined must be given rightful consideration.

7.56 p.m.

Mr. Clifford Kenyon: I make a short intervention only, but as one of the hon. Members who sat on the Select Committee which dealt with the Torquay Corporation Water Bill last year, I feel somewhat guilty that behind this Bill lies our rejection of the Torquay Bill. When we were considering that Bill we felt that the piecemeal taking of water from Dartmoor ought to stop and that there should be large authorities able to take over the collection of water and serve it out to those areas requiring it.
It is perfectly true that no water Bill produces any more water. It collects what water is there and serves it out. That is what the Bill will do in a far better way than has been done before. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong in saying that the Devon County Council will be the only authority that can set up the three separate boards. From the evidence which we heard, it appears that in setting up three boards the council will be taking a proper step. One board would have been too large. It was stated by a representative of the Torquay Corporation that the North Devon Water Board was too large. I do not think so. I have been a member of a very large water undertaking for nearly twenty years. These three water boards, if set up as provided for in the Bill, will serve the interests of the inhabitants of the whole area in a far better way than they have been served previously.

Mr. P. Browne: Has the hon. Gentleman read the Vail Report? If not, will he please do so? He will find that the Vail Committee suggested splitting the county into four water boards, bringing in Exeter and Plymouth, which we think is particularly important.

Mr. Kenyon: I read that Report at the time of our discussions in the Committee.

Mr. Bennett: Since the hon. Gentleman has mentioned Torquay. I think it only fair to point out that the criticisms which proved decisive for him on the Torquay Bill have been met independently since, in that the Torquay Corporation has now, with the agreement of the Devon River Board and the legal and general purposes committee of the county council, devised a new scheme for a new water supply, and as to regrouping has voluntary local agreement for a much larger area surrounding Torquay, for the Teign area and for a quarter of the population and rateable resources of the whole county. While making his criticisms, the hon. Gentleman should note that one of the reasons which led him to throw out the Torquay Bill has been met without this Bill, and this new scheme would, in fact, be put up if it were not frustrated by the Bill now before the House.

Mr. Kenyon: That was only one reason why we threw out the Torquay Bill. There were other reasons. I would not agree with dividing Devon up into four areas. I think that the areas of Exeter and Plymouth which have been left out should be brought into one of the areas now.
This whole question concerning the three undertakings proves one thing. In all our consideration of water supplies throughout the whole country, it is becoming clearer with every Bill that comes forward that there ought to be one national board to take charge of all water and apportion it throughout the country through smaller undertakings such as are envisaged in this Bill.

8.1 p.m.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Mr. Henry Brooke): I shall not venture into the somewhat controversial matters which the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Kenyon) opened in his last remarks. I am glad, however, that, despite his desire for further nationalisation of some sort, he still recognises that there must be local water undertakings. Water is a local service, and it becomes intolerably expensive if one seeks to bring water over excessive distances from one catchment area to another.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. P. Browne) referred to Uncle Tom Cobley. It seems to me that the disputatious differences among Devonians of which we have been conscious this evening indicate why things did not go altogether happily on the way to Widdicombe Fair. I wish to be a peacemaker rather than otherwise. I express my plain view that the Bill should have a Second Reading, and I appreciate very much the fact that even those of my hon. Friends who have spoken most vigorously against it will not stand in the way of the Bill being read a Second time and being examined, as, of course, it should be, thoroughly and meticulously in Committee.
On a water Bill, the Minister is in a position somewhat different from that in which he stands when he is invited to give advice on, let us say, the ordinary Private Bill promoted by a local authority inasmuch as Parliament has imposed upon him definite duties with regard to water, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington reminded us. I ought, I think, to begin by reading Section 1 of the Water Act, 1945, because it is essential to an understanding of these matters and it is bound to govern my approach Parliament has said in that Act:
It shall be the duty of the Minister … to promote the conservation and proper use of water resources and the provision of water supplies in England and Wales and to secure the effective execution by water undertakers, under his control and direction, of a national policy relating to water.
Those words do not imply that the Minister must do everything himself. Indeed, they specifically refer to "effective execution by water undertakers". The Minister, therefore, must have a direct interest in seeing that there are water undertakers in existence or brought into existence which will be effective in carrying out the responsibilities for water supplies. I do not demur to help from any quarter in this task. Whether it be a county council, an hon. Member of the House or anyone else who has suggestions to bring forward, it does not seem to me that we should lightly reject them. Indeed, the grave shortages of water in certain places brought about by the drought of 1959—a drought which in these days, perhaps, we are on the point of forgetting, but which was very vivid to all of us who


had any knowledge of the areas of shortage last summer—put, I submit, a special responsibility on Parliament.
In certain parts of Devon, as my hon. Friends know, there were severe shortages of water last summer. In addition, there are many people in the county, who, unfortunately, have not yet a piped water supply laid on. It is my desire to co-operate with all who assist towards ensuring that Devonshire and other counties are safeguarded against the constant risk of water shortage if prolonged drought recurs.
My concern, also, is to try, so far as I may, to achieve for as large a percentage of our population as reasonably possible a piped water supply. We already have a larger percentage of our population served with piped water than any other country in the world. It is 95 per cent. or more. We may never be able to reach 100 per cent. because there are outlying farms and cottages which, perhaps, can never be reached, but we shall press on, and I am quite sure that everyone who has taken part in the debate, and, indeed, every hon. Member of the House, would wish to see the water supply of Devonshire organised so that those who have not yet piped water will have the best possible chance of receiving it.
My sole concern in relation to the Bill is to further those two purposes. But, as I think will have become apparent from our debate, the water problems of Devonshire are more complex than the problems elsewhere because of the system of water finance embodied in the North Devon Water Act. In July last, my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General, who was Parliamentary Secretary at the time, pointed out that, until the financial arrangements were reviewed by the county council, it seemed almost hopeless to have any further Measures of water regrouping adopted in the county.
As Minister, I frankly say that I am not vitally concerned about what precise method of water charges is adopted or what precise method of allocation between direct water charges and rate liability is adopted. That must be a matter for the people of Devon themselves. In passing, I will say that it would always strike me as unsound if people were to pay far less than the

actual cost of the water they consumed and the difference were made up by very substantial contributions from the rates.
In general, each person should pay the cost of what he uses. It is particularly unfair if an exceptionally heavy burden falls on local rates in an area where a substantial proportion of the population is not provided with water, because in that event the people are having to pay and they are getting nothing back. All these points, no doubt, will have to be considered in relation to the Bill.
I say again that the precise arrangements for charging and for division of cost between water rates and general rates is certainly a matter which the Committee should examine with care. It is the affair of Devonshire rather than primarily the affair of the Minister. It is, however, very much my concern that something should be done about that, because I believe that until it is done all hopes of further voluntary regrouping will be frustrated. That has been the experience hitherto. The efforts which have been made have broken on that rock.
These financial changes can only be brought about by an Act of Parliament. They cannot be done by the Minister or anybody else by Order. They spring from the North Devon Water Act and they can be altered only by a further Act of Parliament. That is why the Bill is important to the cause which I have at heart—the cause of regrouping.
I am determined that there must be some further regrouping in Devon. It could be in three boards or in four boards. I think that three would be preferable, but I grant that four would be possible. None of that, however, can take place until the present arrangements relating to bearing the cost of water have been reviewed and altered.
The Bill may be open to serious criticism—I do not know—but it is a serious-minded attempt to strengthen the structure of the water industry in Devonshire for the provision of water for the people of the county. I am quite sure that, as such, it deserves and requires examination in Committee.
I come back to the Report of the Committee on the Torquay Water Bill of last Session, to which the hon. Member


for Chorley referred. That Committee, in its Report dated 21st April, 1959, said:
The Committee recognise that in the near future Torquay Corporation will need additional supplies of water and that a supply of piped water is urgently necessary in some rural areas. They consider, however, that the first step should he some form of regrouping of the water undertakings in South Devon and that thereafter the new authority or authorities should come to Parliament to seek powers for any additional supplies which may prove to be necessary. The Committee feel that, in considering the sources of such additional supplies, serious attention should be paid to the problems raised by abstraction of the headwaters of rivers where these are already being heavily exploited.
That is a Report to the House from a responsible Committee. Although there may be individual differences of opinion, I believe that the House as a whole would accept that as a fair and just assessment of the situation in South Devon. I certainly do. I agree with the Committee on that Bill that some form of regrouping in South Devon is essential.
Reference has been made to the Vail Report. There are, of course, two Vail Reports. There is the Vail Report of 1954, which was before the Committee in the last Session, and there is the second Vail Report, which was produced after the Committee had reported, when my inspector paid a further visit. His report is not a secret document. It was made available to all the water undertakers of the county. The substance of the second Vail Report was that there are both short-term and long-term problems of water supply in the area which can only be satisfactorily solved if the development of new sources is looked at over a wider area than is covered by individual undertakings now, preferably over the whole of the southern part of the administrative county west of the Exe.
As Minister I accept that view. I believe that it is right. I believe this to be an area where careful consideration must be given to the right way of meeting the growing demands of South Devon, where there is known to be water shortage, at least at all times of summer drought, and I do not think that a satisfactory solution can be secured without some substantial measure of regrouping.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Mr. F. M. Bennett) said that there was no need for the Bill to supply

Torquay with water, because Torquay had found an additional source. That may be so, but Torquay, of course, does not yet have the powers to exploit that source. I have no idea what objections might be raised to it. In any case, I would have, in my consideration, to come back to the second Vail Report and its strong recommendation that the problems of South Devon should be looked at as a whole, whatever may be found, in the end, to be the best final way of meeting them.
If, by the Bill, the existing financial arrangements in the county, which have proved a serious obstacle to further regrouping, are altered either in the manner embodied in the Bill, or in some other manner which, after consideration in Committee, may be found to meet the case better, what has proved to be a lasting obstacle to the progress of regrouping will be removed. That will open the way to objective—I hardly dare say dispassionate—examination of the problems of regrouping in North and East Devon, too. From the water viewpoint, it is the South Devon problem that is the urgent one—I grant that at once. For my part, however, I do not think that the structure is right either in North Devon or in East Devon, nor do I believe that any progress can be made until the financial arrangements are altered.
If the Bill receives a Second Reading today, as I hope it will, it then will become my duty in the ordinary way to submit a report to the Committee on all the relevant provisions of the Bill. Certainly, nothing that I say on Second Reading today should be taken as an indication that I consider that the Bill as drafted should be regarded already as the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be altered. Very likely, improvements can be made in Committee. I hope the Committee will be able to find means of meeting some at least of the strong objections which are raised to the Bill.
As regards the position of Exeter, I can simply say this. I would always be reluctant to see compulsory powers of any kind used against a water undertaking which was strong enough to continue on its own. Exeter is strong enough to continue on its own. In an ideal world, some wider arrangement covering large parts of Devon might be better. We have,


however, to proceed from where we are at present and the Exeter undertaking being in existence, I cannot see that I would be justified in seeking to ask Parliament to use any form of compulsion to bring it into a still wider group.

Mr. Mathew: Will my right hon. Friend please clarify that? He says that Exeter is strong enough to stand on its own. What is the criterion? Is it size, or, as has often been said by officials of the Ministry, a question of having a full-time water engineer? In fact, Exeter has only a part-time engineer and Sidmouth in my constituency has a full-time engineer.

Mr. Brooke: There may be in an individual case a number of criteria, but an undertaking, to be strong enough to stand on its own, must have the requisite population, the requisite financial strength and be well-fitted to employ a full-time and qualified engineer.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: If that is the criterion, I am a little surprised, because earlier by right hon. Friend referred to Torquay. I did not interrupt him then, though I was tempted to do so. Is he suggesting that under the new proposals from Torquay, on the one hand as to the new supply with the agreement of those who have been approached, including the Devon River Board and the General Purposes Committee of Devon County Council, and, on the other, as to regrouping with agreed representation of one fourth of the resources and population of the county, Torquay is not capable of standing on its own?

Mr. Brooke: When I referred to the particular project of Torquay for exploiting a new source of water, I was not discussing the strength of the Torquay undertaking or its qualifications to be an undertaking on its own. I was simply mentioning that Torquay would need to obtain powers if it was to exploit this source, and until it had been advertised and representations and objections had been invited it would be quite impossible for me to know whether substantial objections would arise or not.
As for Devon County Council, I am not proposing to intervene in the arguments about its behaviour. I am not qualified to say whether the county council

has or has not done all it should have done. I must say that if no one in the county, neither the county council nor anyone else had initiated action of some sort at this time, I believe that I should have had no option as Minister but to intervene in some way, because the danger signals were out last summer. If we were to continue with the existing financial arrangements which could be altered only by legislation, and if no one proposed to alter them, it would not be consistent with my duties under the 1945 Act if I sat back with folded hands and simply hoped that something would be done by voluntary arrangements.
I cannot escape the responsibilities laid upon me by Parliament and, if the Bill were to fail or have to be withdrawn I should have no choice but to take some initiative from outside. I do not wish to take that sort of initiative. I would much prefer that Devon solved its own problems from within the county and that a scheme should be worked out which, after scrupulous examination by a Committee of the House, would be a real solution and, if possible, would meet many of the objections which have been enumerated to the detail of the Bill. That is the better way and I cannot help but think that, with all the resources of mind and understanding and keenness in Devon, that should be possible.
I have only to add that if it really proves to be impossible, the duty laid upon me by the 1945 Act would compel me to do something which would be in itself distasteful, and that would be to call people together and perhaps impose or demand a solution. But I cannot effectively impose a solution, as one or two hon. Members have suggested that I might, because I cannot do this by compulsory Order. No compulsory Order will solve this problem until the financial arrangements are altered. That is the complex which we have to face, and it is because of that complex that I greatly hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading in a spirit of reasonable good will and wish the Committee luck in what may possibly be a prolonged series of sittings in examining in detail all that everybody has to say about its provisions.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed.

Orders of the Day — UKRAINIANS, GREAT BRITAIN

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Sharples.]

8.25 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel J. K. Cordeaux: I am glad to have the opportunity this evening of making a plea on behalf of 40,000 Ukrainians who are at present very welcome guests of this country. Of all the peoples who have been forced by man's inhumanity to man to seek asylum with us there are none that have a greater claim to our sympathy and understanding than the Ukrainians. None have adapted themselves more easily and happily and unselfishly to our way of life. They are thrifty and industrious people. They are doing a fine job in this country in agriculture, in the coal mines and in many other under-manned industries. One has only to consult the police of the large cities in which they have settled to learn what a high reputation they have and how richly it is deserved.
I believe that the position is the same in all the countries where they have settled. Almost a million Ukrainians form a highly respected party in that nation of many races, the United States. Over 40,000 of them were among the volunteers in the Canadian armed forces in the last war. They fought very gallantly on our behalf in Africa, in Italy, in France and in Germany and they earned many distinctions. However, despite the Ukrainians' happy faculty of integrating themselves into the lives of the nations in whose countries they live, there is perhaps no nation that has such a passionate feeling of patriotism and sense of nationhood as they have. It is a flame which they have kept burning brightly through many hundreds of years of persecution and attempted genocide such as we in this country find difficult to understand.
The story of the mass deportations, the individual torture, the deliberate planned annihilation by starvation which they have suffered in these years at the hands of Communist Russia is perhaps one of the most terrible stories in the world. I have neither the time nor the desire to harrow the House with details of those

days, nor do I wish to weary hon. Members with a history lesson. Nevertheless, I think it is right to remember that the Ukraine was the first Christian kingdom of Eastern Europe, and that the Ukrainians have always been and remain to this day a very deeply religious people. The Ukraine was a nation which was greatly respected and of high culture in Europe many years before William the Conqueror conquered this country, and it was indeed a nation of considerable renown in Europe when the Russians, and indeed ourselves, were still in a state of barbarism.
Scattered over different continents, there are about 47 million Ukrainians, and approximately 45 million live in the Ukraine proper. At least they did, though that number has been considerably reduced. It has been reduced by millions by the horrors of which I was speaking earlier. At any rate, sufficient remain there to form a nation not so very much smaller in population than our own, which has succeeded in keeping itself during all that time as a separate nation, with its own traditions, its own culture, and, perhaps most important of all from the point of view of the plea which I wish to make tonight, its own language.
I hope that in these very few words I have perhaps said enough to persuade my hon. and learned Friend that, morally at any rate, the Ukraine has as much right to be considered as an independent nation as any other nation, and indeed a great deal more right than some. Nevertheless, we in this country, for reasons that may seem adequate to the Government, deny them that right, and it was the latest manifestation of this denial that caused me to initiate this debate tonight.
Early last December the Nottingham branch of the Anglo-Ukrainian Society, of which I am very happy to be a member, approached me in very great distress of mind and told me that its members in Nottingham had been summoned to report to police headquarters and had there been pressed to change their nationality from Ukrainian, as then registered, to either Russian or Polish.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: Were any of them in the hon. and gallant Member's constituency asked to accept the term "uncertain"?

Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux: I shall go fairly fully, I hope, into the question of registration as "uncertain" later on.
At any rate, this request—I will not use a stronger term—was made to them by the police. I hope I have said enough already for hon. Members to realise how deeply humiliated and indeed horrified the Ukrainians were by such a request. It was worse than merely a question of humiliation. There were indeed many among them with a definite sense of panic. They feared that this was merely the prelude to their deportation to Russia. It might seem quite ridiculous to us that they should have had any such feelings, but I think we should appreciate that people who have suffered the hundreds of years of persecution that the Ukrainians have react very differently to a situation of that sort as compared with ourselves.
In proof of that point I should like to quote from two letters which I have received, the first from the secretary of the Anglo-Ukrainian Society in Nottingham, which I received in December, and in which he says:
The Ukrainians here in Nottingham just cannot understand why some of them are now being called to the police station and pressed to change their nationality, and underlying their worry is the fear that possibly they may be forced to return to the U.S.S.R. or Poland, although, personally, I do not think that this particular action will be taken.
With this letter was enclosed a copy of a letter which the secretary of the Nottingham branch had written to the chief constable of Nottingham. I quote from it as follows:
A number of Ukrainians have approached our society asking questions as to why they are being sent to the police station and being pressed to change their nationality to Russian or Polish. This action of the City Police is causing the Ukrainians a great deal of worry and, I might say, a sense of panic. They are beginning to wonder if by being forced to change their nationality this might be the prelude to some further step. Naturally this does not serve to better the relations between the British and the Ukrainian people. There has always been a great respect by the Ukrainians towards the British people and they have always tried to adapt themselves to the British way of life and to cause as little trouble as possible to the authorities. The Ukrainians are a freedom-loving people and millions of them have died in their struggle against Communist Russia, and it is a great humiliation indeed for them to be called now to change their nationality to Russian or Polish.

Of course, I am aware that this action by the police was not due to any new Order by the Government or indeed to any change of policy. It was in fact due—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): Order. I am reluctant to interrupt the hon. and gallant Member, but if he is referring to action by local police which is not due to any Order of the Government, he may find himself in difficulty in keeping his speech within the rules of order.

Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux: Thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was not suggesting that. The action of the local police was entirely due to Government action. The point I was making was that it was not due to any new Government policy or Government Order. It was due to the action of the Government in sending out Home Office Circular 119/59, dated 10th September, 1959, which calls the attention of the police to a previous Government instruction which I will quote. It probably dates from some ten years back. The relevant part, dealing with the question of the registration of aliens, reads as follows:
Special considerations apply in the case of Ukrainians. The Ukraine is not a sovereign state and aliens coming from this area should correctly be described as nationals of the country of which their place of birth actually forms part. Thus, Czech Ukrainians, Polish Ukrainians, Rumanian Ukrainians, Russian Ukrainians and U.S.S.R. Ukrainians should, respectively, be described as Czechoslovaks, Poles, Rumanians and Russians. Permission has, however, exceptionally been given for aliens who claim to be Ukrainian and who object to their correct nationality being entered in their registration certificate to have 'Uncertain (U)' entered under the heading 'Nationality' in their certificates and on their registration cards".
The Home Office Circular in question called the attention of the police to this Order. I can only assume that Circular 119 was sent out last September because the majority of police forces in this country, with commendable common sense and human understanding, had taken no notice of the instruction which I have quoted. It seems to me that the latest circular must have originated from somebody in Whitehall with what I would call an over-tidy office mind, but with no appreciation whatever of the human problems involved.
As regards these human problems, I have dried to show that there is no race who, morally, are more entitled to consider themselves an independent nation than the Ukrainians. But I would now like to advance four practical reasons why I think they are entitled to demand that recognition.
Firstly, the Ukraine is a full member of the United Nations and is, of course, recognised by our country as such. Secondly, it has its own Government and its own Foreign Office. Thirdly, it was recognised by this country and eight other European countries as an independent nation in 1918 and did, in fact, maintain that independence until 1923. The Ukraine again successfully asserted its independence in the last war in 1941. Fourthly, it is, in fact, at the present time in Russia a criminal offence for a Ukrainian to register himself as anything except Ukrainian.
I would also like to know what practical purpose this Home Office instruction is intended to serve. It will not in any Sense assist the police. I discussed this matter with the acting chief constable of Nottingham and he has told me that he would very much prefer Ukrainians to be registered as Ukrainians. He said that if in the city, as sometimes happens in all cities, they had some sort of trouble or feud between different races or, indeed, between different political parties, the police would want to know of just what nationality every alien actually was. For instance, the police would always know that no Latvian or Lithuanian or Ukrainian would be in sympathy with any Communist or pro-Communist group, but the police might not find their task quite so easy if all these people were simply labelled as Russian. In the same way, of course, the police would know very well how the sympathies of most of the Spanish refugees in this country would be likely to lie in any political quarrel
At any rate, that is the strong opinion of the police in Nottingham, and I have no reason to believe that it would be different in the case of any other police force. Moreover I put this specific question to my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State: what would be the position of Ukrainians in this country, if they were registered as Russians, if we went to war with the U.S.S.R.? Would they then be automatically

interned as enemy aliens, despite the fact that they would, of course, be among our most fervent supporters?
Finally, I would advance this argument. How would we feel if we had lost the last war and the Germans had occupied our country and it had been incorporated into the Reich, and, while living as refugees in some other country, we were ordered to register ourselves either as Germans or as of uncertain nationality? Of course, we should contemptuously refuse to do anything of the sort. We know that we are British and in exactly the same way the Ukrainians know what they are—they know they are Ukrainians. They are not Russians, never have been Russians and are absolutely determined that they never will be Russians. They have fought and died and suffered martyrdom for hundreds of years to prove that they are Ukrainians.
Will my hon. and learned Friend rescind this Order and allow Ukrainians to register themselves as what they are, Ukrainians, and will he do it soon? In Nottingham, as a result of Home Office Circular No. 119, 38 Ukrainians have now registered themselves as Polish after having been called to police headquarters. Fifty-two have registered themselves as of uncertain nationality. There remain still to be interviewed 317. Will my hon. and learned Friend rescind the Order as soon as possible and save those remaining 317 this distress and humiliation?
I know from answers which my hon. and learned Friend has given to questions that he is sympathetic to this plea. I ask him, therefore, to try as quickly as he can to overcome this red tape, which, presumably, has caused this Order and the issue of this latest circular, and to put the thing on a better footing. If he cannot do that at present, will he at least adopt a suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Teeling) and allow Ukrainians to register themselves as Ukrainian refugees? That is a practice which is adopted in France with, I understand, perfectly satisfactory results. If he cannot do that, will he adopt the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. M. Macmillan) and allow them to register as Ukrainian with a P or R or some other letter in brackets after their name?
The Government recognise and sympathise with what is generally called the "upsurge of nationalism" in Africa and elsewhere. Indeed, they encourage it and hustle the nations concerned along the road to independence. Yet few of those nations have suffered at all in their march to nationhood. In order to maintain their nationhood or to attempt to maintain it. Ukrainians have suffered fearfully. Surely, in World Refugee Year of all times, it must not be said that we have added this humiliation to their suffering.

8.47 p.m.

Mr. John McCann: In reinforce the plea of the hon. and gallant Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux) that the Ukrainian contingent in this country should have fair play. I, too, am a member of the Anglo-Ukrainian Association. There is a strong association in my constituency of Rochdale, so that I have had an opportunity to see how closely knit is this organisation for the benefit of the people who have suffered so long and been so persecuted in their attempts to maintain their own nationality.
I cannot say how strongly these people feel about the type of treatment which they are receiving and how disappointed and hurt they were when the Home Office Circular asked that they should be registered as Russian, Polish, or uncertain. They are neither Russian nor Polish. They are Ukrainians and proud of the fact that they are Ukrainians. They have their own language and their own culture. To make one small criticism of them, they tend to stay together as a group of Ukrainians rather than to integrate themselves into the life of the community, and that is especially the case in Lancashire. So strong are the racial ties that that is bound to happen.
These are not the flotsam and jetsam of the world. These are hard-working, deeply religious people. Knowing many of them for some time, I feel that the least that we can do is to allow them to register under their own title. Instead of "U" for "uncertain" let them register as "U" for "Ukrainian", and if there has to be a "T" for "Temporary" or "R" behind their name, that does not matter.
It is rather strange that someone in the Civil Service, knowing the history of the Russian domination of these people, should ask them to register as Russian. It is true that we do not recognise the Ukraine, although she is a full member of the United Nations. I am certain that, if the hon. and learned Gentleman looks at this again, the point that has been made so many times from both sides of the House can be met.
I have had correspondence with the hon. and learned Gentleman on this problem. I recognise his difficulty. I appreciate the sympathy he has extended both to me and to the people on whose behalf I have spoken, but this is a festering sore in the heart of these people. They have come here to find refuge. They have found a way of life which, even if they cannot go back to their own country, has given them hope of being able to live as a community. They live in a strange land, but they follow their own customs, language and religion. If we could recognise them as Ukrainians that would make one group of people, whose loyalty to this country has never been in doubt, very happy.

8.50 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I do not want to repeat the arguments of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux) and the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. McCann). The only difference between us on this issue is that east of the Pennines Ukrainians seem to integrate fairly well, because not long ago I came across a family in which two sisters had married, one an Italian and one a German, and the children spoke four languages, all with a strong Yorkshire accent.

Mr. McCann: They integrate in the marital sense, but instead of the Ukrainians becoming English the wives become Ukrainian.

Mr. Macmillan: That is possibly a tribute to the virility of the Ukrainians.
There is no doubt that the Ukrainians are part of a nation, even if we do not recognise their independence as a State. In this context, it is important to remember that by these regulations we are removing not only their independence—that has been done by others—


but their nationhood, and that is something about which they feel, and I think rightly, very strongly.
May I quote from a letter I received from a Ukrainian in Halifax? The letter says:
Perhaps I should point out now that the word 'Ukrainian' is to our people symbolic of our long-fought-for independence, and to be registered as any other nationality is a bitter blow to our national pride.
If this country had been defeated, how would we feel if we were compelled to register as refugees in another country?
I am not convinced by the Minister's reasons, although they have been put forward with the utmost sympathy. There is no real purpose behind the regulations. I went so far as to make inquiries about whether there was an ulterior political motive in them, but I was told that there was no sinister purpose involved. It was simply a question of securing consistency of records. I have managed to reassure the Ukrainians in Halifax that they have no need to fear that there is any question of foreign policy behind the regulations, or any difficulty about deportation and so on. I have assured them that these regulations have been made because all other nationals are registered as belonging to some State which is recognised as being independent.
There is some point in registering other nationals who are not refugees but who are merely visitors or work here on a permit, because if they misbehave they can be deported. Also, many of them will ultimately return home, but the Ukrainians have no home to go to. We have already told them that we will not deport them. What does it matter what labels they are given, among the many shifts and changes which occur in Central Europe? If there is some adjustment of the Oder-Neisse line will their registration be changed once again?
I hope that the Minister will admit that we have shown that little practical purpose is to be served by forcing Ukranians to register as other nationalities. My hon. Friend has pointed out that in certain cases an inter-Slav quarrel, which happens from time to time, might lead to slight confusion. Certainly a Ukrainian will not cease quarrelling with a Pole simply because the Ukrainian is also called a

Pole. If anything, that will add fuel to the flames.
I know that my hon. and learned Friend is sympathetic. Those of us who have dealings with these nations are used to hearing them referred to as the captive countries. We cannot liberate them, but I hope that my hon. and learned Friend can liberate himself and cease to be the captive of his officials, who have insisted upon this method of registration. Various methods have been suggested to overcome the difficulty. These people may be registered as Ukrainian refugees. If it is absolutely necessary that the nation in which they were born be identified, that could be done by putting an initial letter, in brackets, after their classification. But in any case, I beg my hon. and learned Friend to show that this country is not dead to sentiment, and that mankind and the national feelings of men and women are more important than any machine, even if it be a Government machine.

8.57 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: I support the plea put forward by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I was very relieved to hear the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) say that he was satisfied that there was no political motive or inspiration behind the recent action of the Home Office. It had passed through my mind that Mr. Khrushchev might have complained to the Prime Minister about this situation when he and the right hon. Gentleman met not long ago, and that this was one of the many prices that we have to pay for Anglo-Soviet amity and understanding. I am glad to hear that that is not so.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I can assure the hon. Member that if it were so Anglo-Russian amity would have been bought at the expense of a family rift.

Mr. Houghton: I am glad that we can consider this question upon the practical basis of consistency of record. That helps tremendously. It reduces the matter to the proportion of a filing system—a classification of records in the Home Office—and on that basis we might bring some sense to bear on the question.
Why did the hon. and learned Member cause—if he did cause—this reminder to


be sent to the police as recently as last September, when the original regulation was some years old and the police had apparently been exercising their discretion as to whether or not they acted on it? Why was it necessary to do this? I do not want to attack civil servants, or to cast aspersions upon them; my connections with the Civil Service are far too long and too deep to allow me to do that. But the political and social judgment of a Minister must be brought to bear upon any passion of clerks or civil servants for consistency of records. That is what I complain of.
It may be that, theoretically, these Ukrainians are the nationals of an independent State, be it Russia, Poland. Czechoslovakia or some other country, but they nevertheless passionately desire to retain their description as Ukrainians. Shall we deny it? That is the question. I ask the Minister: when Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania were swallowed up without the consent of the peoples there did we then, automatically, and at once say, "Well, we are very sorry. You are Russians. We cannot help that. You have lost your nationhood, your independence. You have just gone. You are sunk without a trace, and you are indeed Russians." Is that what we do for the sake of the consistency of the record, or any other purpose? If we do. I think that it is an abomination and an outrage on the pride and the dignity of human beings.
A number of Ukrainians live in my constituency. It is no accident that the hon. Member for Halifax, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Mr. McCann), the hon. and gallant Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux) and I are all here. We all have Ukrainians in our constituencies and not until recently did we know how many we had. They lived quietly and decently, mixing with the communities in our respective areas without any fuss or palaver. But when this happened they were deeply moved. I saw a very agitated deputation of Ukrainians recently in my constituency. They had the sympathy of all those around them, and that is important.
What do we gain by this? How does it help anybody to look up a book and see on the top line, "Nationality, uncertain"? What does it tell them

except that there is some uncertainty about it? If it is ever necessary to take any action on the nationality of these people, I would shrink from speculation on the treatment of this matter in the event of war between this country and the Soviet Union.
I just cannot contemplate that situation, so I do not want to speculate upon the problem that might arise in this context. What I think is of more practical importance is that we are not thinking of sending these people back anywhere. In any case, we would have great difficulty in deciding where they should go, and would have to ponder hard and long on the conditions into which we might be sending them. One of the important aspects is that the Ukrainians live peacefully and without disorder amongst us.
I am very puzzled about this. I am used to bureaucracy in all its forms—agreeable and aggravating. I thought, "Well, why have they done this? What is this fuss about? Why could not they leave the matter alone?" The police were leaving it alone but, for some reason that he has not yet explained—and I hope that he will explain tonight—the Minister caused the police to be reminded. Why? What harm was anyone doing? What did it matter if they were left alone in peace and happiness and contentment among our fellow citizens in our constituencies?
Now, all this disturbance has been created. Men and women have been made unhappy, and have been given a feeling of insecurity when we know that they need have no such fear. As the hon. and gallant Member for Nottingham, Central has said, when people are living as the guests of another country they naturally have a feeling of insecurity. They know that they cannot demand the rights of an Englishman, and that it is our tolerance that permits them to stay here.
We have a reputation of being an hospitable country. We are the refuge of those who flee from persecution and from disagreeable conditions. Throughout history we have offered our protection to those who have wanted to escape from intolerable conditions. When we do that, we want to make those who come here for refuge feel as secure as we possibly can. That is the whole point of offering them refuge—to give diem a sense of security, and to make them


feel that they are out of harm's way and that they may rebuild their lives somewhere else.
If we are now to create this uncertainty in their minds we are doing them a disservice and causing unhappiness. One of the functions of Ministers is to prevent people being made unhappy unless there is a real and overwhelming reason for something being done that makes them unhappy. I cannot, for the life of me, see what this is all about. I hope that the Minister will understand how deeply we all feel about this matter, and that he will take steps to repair the damage that is being done at present.
There is no real difficulty about it. If there are some rules—alter them. If there is a "sacred cow" of consistency of records—kill it. There is no reason why we should be made slaves to a fine insistence on record systems unless there is a real practicable purpose—and I do not think that there is. These people are aliens in the eyes of the law. They must have alien registration books. Their photographs are in the books. Their descriptions are in the books. They have to report to the police. They have to obey the rules governing the residence of aliens. The police have track of them all the time. What does it matter what appears on the first line of the book—that is what I want to know—especially when their nationality, if it had to be defined in terms of the word of today would, in many cases, he difficult to determine?
If Ukrainian is their nationality, I see no reason why Ukrainian they cannot be. Just recently, I received the first of a series of booklets being published by the Soviet Government on the 15 independent republics in the U.S.S.R. The first book I got was about Georgia; the second was about the Ukraine. One reads all about the Ukrainian nation, its people and the rest.
The Russians probably portray the Ukraine as being more independent than it really is—I do not know what the real facts are about that—but, at least, the Ukraine is defined as a separate country for the purpose of Russian geography a id the Russian information services throughout the world. One reads in this booklet of a separate Council of Ministers, and a separate administration

of the Ukraine. That, of course, is the Russian Ukraine but, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman pointed out, part of Poland was originally within the scope of the Ukrainian people.
I have said probably more than I ought to have said on various aspects of this matter, but I hope that the Minister will take the question to his heart, and see wheher the requirements of administration, the consistency of records, the obedience to the rules, cannot be moulded to the human problem present here, and so give back to these people their feeling of security and of dignity; and ease their minds, whose peace has been seriously damaged in recent weeks, and give them the happiness with the people amongst whom they have chosen to live, since, for various reasons, they are debarred from returning to their homeland.

9.10 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I hope that the Minister will make a very definite attempt to answer the question which has just been put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton)—why cannot they leave the Ukrainians alone? I, for one, see absolutely no reason why the Government should insist in carrying out what obviously is a purely bureaucratic system. When my hon. Friend talks about bureaucracy, in view of his background, I believe there is something very pertinent in the case he makes.
I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) say that we cannot liberate the Ukraine. We cannot liberate any of these countries which happen to be under Russian rule. At least, we certainly cannot liberate them by military methods. The more we get that fact implanted upon our own Government and our allies, the more we shall succeed in getting at the reality of life in that unfortunate part of the world. I should not say that at present it is so unfortunate, but it is a part of the world which has had an unfortunate history. It has been overrun in two world wars by Germans, there has been the ebb and flow of wars and the unfortunate victims of the war are still with us.
I represent some of them. In Scotland also there are people from the Ukraine. They were first captured by the Germans


and brought into Germany. They then came over here. Whatever they call themselves, whether they call themselves Ukrainians or not, is not a matter of vital importance, surely, to the administration of alien justice in this country. They have a different language from the Russians and a different language from the Poles. It is true that some of these nations may be obsessed with their sense of nationality.
I remember one occasion when I was visiting East Germany, occupied by the Russian forces. I went to Weimar and discovered a rather strange thing. I found a Russian church which had been built two or three hundred years ago because a Russian princess married a German duke, the Duke of Weimar. He had a Russian church built for the benefit of his wife. Curiously enough, when the Russian army of occupation marched in, it decided to use the church for religious purposes for the personnel that accompanied the Russian Army.
To my great surprise the church was opened and I was shown round by a priest of the Russian Church. I asked him whether he was a Russian, and he replied, "No, I come from the Ukraine. Do you come from England?" I replied, "No, I come from Scotland." I could well understand that if any unfortunate Scots were in the Soviet Union in the same circumstances, one of the biggest insults which could be offered them would be to insist on registering them as English.

Mr. McCann: Or "uncertain".

Mr. Hughes: I see no rule or social reason why these people cannot be left alone. At about this time last year I was in Kiev with the Prime Minister. As he walked through the crowd, who were very pleased to see him, he shouted out in Russian—not in Ukrainian—"I wish you success. I wish you success." If he wished the people of the Ukraine success, surely it is a mistake for the Home Office to insist on an arbitrary regulation of this kind.
I do not think this is a subject on which Mr. Khrushchev tried to bargain with the Prime Minister. Indeed, I am sure that the subject never entered the discussion. I also doubt whether Mr. Khrushchev would at this time want to see beck in the Ukraine several thousand

people who have been living in the West. Of course, if the seven-year plan is successful, things may change. I never permit the Prime Minister to forget his tribute to Mr. Khrushchev, in which he said that he had done the greatest constructive work in the world.
In the U.S.S.R. they are pointing to the promised land. If this is achieved, then in another seven years, if the standard of life in the Ukraine has risen to the level of that in the United States, there may be an opportunity for these people to return to their native land. I hope that that time will come, that the Ukraine will be prosperous and that its agriculture will flourish. I hope that its organisation will result in a high standard of life and that these unfortunate people and their families, who felt the brunt of the cruelty of one of the most cruel phases of the war, will eventually be able to go back to a prosperous and flourishing Ukraine.
I am sure that the Government hope that this time will come. In the meantime, why cannot the Government accept the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby and the hon. Member for Halifax and leave these unfortunate people alone?

9.19 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton): I am grateful, as I am sure is the whole House, to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux) for giving us this opportunity to consider the question of the registration of the Ukrainians in this country. I am particularly grateful because, as I hope the House will find, it gives me an opportunity to remove the misconceptions and fears which, as has been shown by some of the moving speeches which we have heard tonight, have undoubtedly arisen as a result of some instructions in a regulation issued by the Aliens Department of the Home Office on 10th September last year.
I should like to join with my hon. and gallant Friend in paying tribute to the qualities of the Ukrainian people who came here during and after the war. We in the Home Office know what good and, mostly, hard-working people they are. We record with great satisfaction the way that they have settled down in


this country and the contribution that they have made to our efforts at postwar reconstruction. I personally have come across some of these people and therefore have reason to share the admiration that has been expressed.
My hon. and gallant Friend alleged that the Nottingham police requested people who were registered as Ukrainians to change that registration to Russian or Polish. We in the Home Office do not know exactly what the Nottingham police have said to individual Ukrainians. As Mr. Deputy-Speaker correctly pointed out, that is not a matter which can engage the responsibility of the House except in so far as it was the result of a Circular issued on behalf of a Minister of the Crown.
I stress that—as under the Circular of ten years ago so under the Circular of last September—people who claim to be Ukrainians and are registered as Ukrainians or have expressed a wish to register as Ukrainians are asked by the police to register either as being of a specific nationality or as being of uncertain nationality and the letter "U" is added afterwards as indicating "Ukrainian". I shall have more to say about this procedure in the course of my remarks, but I felt that it was right at the beginning to restate what I think is the main cause of contention in the debate so that the House may feel, as I hope it does, that I at least understand what I have to reply to.
There was a fear—it was the principal fear expressed by the Ukrainians, and certainly by the community association on their behalf—that as the result of the action taken by at least one police force on the Home Office Circular some change was intended, or would be made, in their status as refugees in this country. It was even suggested, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Maurice Macmillan), that some pressure had been exerted from the other side of the Iron Curtain. I am very glad indeed that he stressed that there has been nothing whatever so sinister and, as I hope to show, the police circular was not in any way prompted by any such pressure or consideration.
I wish to give the categorical assurance that no change in status has occurred or was intended. I wish to

make it clear that Ukrainians who came here as refugees and have made their homes among us are as welcome now as they were when they came and as welcome as they have ever been. Further, there is no question of any action against them. They have no cause whatever to feel disturbed, insecure or in any way alarmed by the corrections which have had to be made in a comparatively few individual cases to the registration particulars under the Aliens Order.
In saying this I am repeating and reaffirming the unqualified assurances given to the Nottingham branch of the Anglo-Ukrainian Society and the Answer I gave in this House at Question Time on 28th January. I want to make this assurance as emphatic as I can because my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is most anxious that these worthy, honest and hard-working people should continue to live contentedly among us in the way hoped for by the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton).
Their position as residents here has not been altered in any way as a result of the Circular of 10th September, but I should explain the procedure which has given rise to their apparent uneasiness. I do not dispute that there has been uneasiness. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax referred to the possibility of my being a captive of other people. The truth is that those other people and I are captives of the law of the land which, at the moment, is the Aliens Order, 1953, which in this respect is a continuation of aliens legislation of many years' standing.
Under Article 13 of that Aliens Order—this answers the specific question asked by the hon. Member for Sowerby—particulars of aliens have to be registered with the police. We have to go to the Second Schedule to the Order to find out what those particulars are. One particular required is:
Present nationality. How and when acquired. Previous nationality, if any.
I will explain how, as a matter of administration, that is interpreted and applied.
Nationality is something derived from citizenship of an independent political state recognised as such by our Foreign Office. It cannot be acquired from membership of an ethnic, geographical or linguistic group which has no recognized


political status. In modern history, certainly during the last few centuries, whatever the greatness of its past as the earliest eastern Christian kingdom, the Ukraine has had no independent political status. It follows from that general proposition that we cannot in practice allow—

Mr. F. H Hayman: The hon. and learned Gentleman has said that the Ukraine is not an independent political State. Is it not one of the States which is a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?

Mr. Renton: That, of course, is a matter of opinion, but on these questions of recognition it is a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. McCann) will be familiar with the terms in which my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs wrote to him about that very matter, pointing out that, although within the United Nations after the war recognition was given to the Ukraine and to Byelorussia as separate States for the purpose of recognition by the United Nations, we have never recognised the separate existence of those two—whatever noncommittal word one can use—countries. We look to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Soviet Russia, as the Soviet State within which those two so-called countries are contained. The Ukraine is not recognised by the Foreign Office as an independent State.
Once we have that conception of nationality, it follows as a matter of practice that we cannot allow separate groups which are not identical with political States to be registered under descriptions chosen by people who claim to have such a position. If we did so, we might find ourselves registering, for example, Slovenes, Croats, Armenians or Catalans. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) explained in converse the situation in which a Scotsman might find himself when travelling abroad and not wanting to register as British. It reminded me that I had a friend who whenever travelling abroad attempted to register as Cornish and found himself in difficulty.

Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux: Will my hon. and learned Friend explain more clearly why people should not be

registered as Serbs, Croats or Slovenes? What would be the harm of their being so registered? For the reasons I tried to give during my speech, would it not also be of advantage to police forces? These people are of different nationalities.

Mr. Renton: As I have pointed out, the recognition of States for this purpose is a matter upon which we have to accept the advice of my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary. Therefore, my hon. and gallant Friend's question would be more correctly addressed to a Foreign Office Minister.

Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux: I will see that it is.

Mr. Renton: I want to deal next with people, of whom these are a great many, whom we admit as people with refugee status and who are entitled to protection under the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. The principles which I have enunciated as to deciding what is their nationality holds good even when the people regard themselves as refugees from the State from which they came. For example, we have many Polish and Hungarian refugees here. They are registered with us as, respectively, Polish and Hungarian.
We do not, however, deal with the Ukrainians in that way. For the past ten years we have deferred to their feelings. It was decided under the previous Government of ten years ago, after discussing the matter with representatives of the Ukrainian community here, that Ukrainians who wished to be so registered officially could be registered as being of uncertain nationality and the letter "U" was added after their name. That was in deference to the feelings of Ukrainians. It was an exception which was made on their behalf. There is no other racial group which has any special arrangement of that kind made.
Strictly speaking, I suppose, the alternative would have been to register them as Stateless persons, who also have to be registered as Stateless when there is no nationality to state within the terms of the Aliens Order. But we do not register them simply as Stateless persons. We register them as of uncertain nationality with "U" added after their names. About 8,000 Ukrainians have been registered in that way.
No difficulty of the kind which has been described tonight might have arisen but for the fact that a few police forces did not in all cases use either that form of registration or register the original nationality of the Ukrainians concerned, which may have been German, Russian or Polish.
When it was brought to the notice of the Home Office that a good many Ukrainians were registered by the police simply as Ukrainian, the Home Office, not for bureaucratic reasons but to ensure consistent application of what is undoubtedly the law, decided that as it had in any event to get out fresh instructions for the police dealing with a considerable number of points, it should try to get clarity and uniformity of practice by dealing with this point too.
That is how it was that last autumn, while getting out new and full instructions for the police so that they should have full and proper guidance in the administration of the Aliens Order, we took advantage of the opportunity to put the matter right in a minority of cases which had not been properly registered in accordance with the law.

Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux: Would my hon. and learned Friend not agree that such a consistent application of the law, as he called it, without using commonsense methods or considering the whole question of humanity is, in fact, bureaucracy?

Mr. Renton: That is a matter of opinion, but I would have hoped that the explanation which I have given on the first requirement that nationality has to be stated would have satisfied my hon. and gallant Friend. If my hon. and gallant Friend accepted the definition of nationality as being citizenship of a recognised State of independent status, I would have thought that he would have had a different view about it and would not have intervened as he did just now.
Both at Question Time on 28th January and again tonight two alternative suggestions have been made to me about registering Ukrainians in other ways than those I have mentioned. First, there was the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax that they should be registered as Ukrainians with the letters G, P, or R added after their

names, indicating German, Polish or Russian. Secondly, there was the suggestion from my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Teeling) that they should be registered as "Ukrainian refugees," which is what is done in France. I have considered both suggestions carefully; I regret that under the law as it stands at present I cannot accept either suggestion, but I can offer a ray of hope.
As I indicated in the debate on the renewal of the Aliens Order, which we had in the early part of the new Session of the new Parliament, we are considering the whole question of the registration of aliens with the police and these articles of the Aliens Order which govern the present position. We will consider those two suggestions made by my hon. Friends when we are considering this general question of the registration of aliens. It is a major exercise. We have to consult all the police forces and the other Government Departments in connection with it. Therefore, I cannot say anything more precise at the moment, but we will consider all the views which have been expressed in the debate when we are dealing with those parts of the Aliens Order.

Mr. Houghton: I am sorry to trouble the hon. and learned Gentleman, but another suggestion which I have heard deserved as being preferable to "uncertain" was "Stateless". Would the hon. and learned Gentleman offer an observation on that clasification as to whether it is permissible in these circumstances?

Mr. Renton: The expression "Stateless" has a very special significance in this context, and I do not think that that expression alone would give any satisfaction to the Ukrainians because it would merely place them in the same position as all the other Stateless people who are registered as Stateless. What they are obviously anxious to have is something distinctive, and they have something distinctive to the extent that they are described, as no other racial group is described, as being of uncertain nationality with the letter "U" added after their names. I am grateful for all suggestions, but with the greatest respect I do not think that that suggestion would give any satisfaction.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham, Central raised


some questions, which are necessarily hypothetical, about the position of the Ukrainians who are here in the event of war between the United Kingdom and Soviet Russia. I am glad that the hon. Member for Sowerby said that he could not speculate on such a thing, and I shall not give speculative answers to hypothetical questions. It is seldom wise for Ministers to deal with hypothetical questions if they can avoid doing so. That is a general principle which is well observed, but it is certainly most undesirable to make such answers against such a terrible background. The general nature of war and the security measures which it might demand are, I am sure, matters which hon. Members would not wish me to discuss in this debate.
In the event of any such emergency, the treatment of Ukrainians would be related to their real and known loyalties. I can say no more, but I say again that any Ukrainian who feels himself, however groundlessly, to be at risk by reason of any specific national registration, can avail himself of this ten-year-old concession and have himself registered as of uncertain nationality with the letter "U" after his name, if

he so wishes, so that even that fear can be allayed.
In conclusion, I say to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham, Central and to other hon. Members whose moving speeches have been a great contribution to the debate, as well as to those many hon. Members who have written to me about this subject—I have had a great many letters in the last few weeks—that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is always mindful of the strong and understandable feelings of people of Ukrainian origin on the subject of their nationhood, which is the expression which has been used several times tonight, and their identity as a race, and also their community of feeling and distinctive traditions.
We respect them, and I hope that they will take comfort from the restatement of assurances which I have given, and from the explanation of the limited scope and purpose of the action recently taken to ensure that their status is correctly recorded in accordance with our present law.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Ten o'clock.